À nous les petites Anglaises! (1976) - film review

France, 1959.  When Jean-Pierre and Alain fail their high school exams, their parents cancel their summer holiday in St. Tropez and send them off to Ramsgate in England to study English.  Far from being disheartened by the prospect of having to spend weeks in a wet, foggy land, learning an impossible language, the two lads are brimming with enthusiasm.  They can hardly wait to try out their seductive charms on English girls who, they believe, are passionate lovers.  This illusion is quickly dispelled when Jean-Pierre and Alain discover that English girls cannot even kiss properly.  Already disillusioned with this backward country, the two French lads soon decide to abandon their Norman conquests and instead tag along with their fellow students.  In no time they are discovering the joys and pangs of teenage love in a cold Kentish climate...

Director Michel Lang made a promising feature debut with this bittersweet portrayal of adolescence, set in Ramsgate (that well-known Mecca for French students) during the rock and roll years.  Characteristically for this director, the cast consists mainly of inexperienced and non-professional actors and is shot almost entirely on location.  This gives the film a near-documentary naturalism and immediacy which is quite rare for a French film of this period.

The film is interesting for its amusingly Gallic portrayal of the English, who are naturally portrayed as tea-drinking barbarians who cannot take their liquor and exist on a diet of blancmange and jelly.  The funniest moments are in the scenes where the two central characters, Jean-Pierre and Alain, interact with their host families.  Inevitably, there is at least one member of each household who finds their French lodger irresistible and will do anything to seduce him.  Not surprising then that both lads end up looking like beleaguered prisoners of war.

The principals – Rémi Laurent, Stéphane Hillel and Véronique Delbourg – all make their film debut here and it is their sympathetic and believable performances which made the film a comparative box office hit.  Music from the period is supplemented by work from Mort Shuman, a composer who had work for Elvis Presley, giving the film an authentic late fifties feel, which doubtless added to its nostalgia value.  Although Michel Lang made several films in a similar vein, notably L’Hôtel de la plage (1978), few of these come even close to matching the beguiling charm and sincerity of À nous les petites Anglaises!, which is now a sadly overlooked little gem.

© filmsdefrance.com 2009

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