La Grande lessive (!) (1968)

La Grande lessive (!) is a French film comedy first released in 1968, directed by Jean-Pierre Mocky.  The film stars Bourvil, Francis Blanche, Roland Dubillard, Jean Tissier and Jean Poiret.  It has also been released under the title: The Big Wash.  Our overall rating for this film is: good.


Concerned by the harmful effect that watching too much television is having on his pupils, Parisian schoolteacher Armand Saint-Just decides it is time to go on the offensive.  No more petitions, discussions, meetings and pamphlets.  Now it is time to act!  With the assistance of Missenard, a militant P.E. teacher, and Benjamin, a maverick scientist, he hatches a plan that he believes will make him a popular hero.  Each night, the trio climb onto the roofs of the buildings where the pupils live and spray a special chemical compound onto the TV aerials, thereby rendering the owners’ televisions useless.  The scheme is a success – the pupils can now do their homework in peace and no longer fall asleep during lessons at school.  But their parents are up in arms – and vent their fury against the Office of French Television.   Lavalette, the director of this august organisation, is determined to resolve the mystery and bring to justice those deviants who are responsible for this moral outrage...

Jean-Pierre Mocky’s acerbic satire on the harmful influence of television on children and society in general continues to be as relevant forty years after the film was first released – perhaps even more so if the findings of recent studies are to be believed.   However, that is not the main reason for watching La Grande lessive.  The film’s main selling point is the dream pairing of Bourvil with Francis Blanche - two of the greatest comic performers in French cinema.  Both actors are in fine form (although Blanche comes close to being outstaged by his blonde wig) and give great value in this madcap knockabout farce.

There are also some great supporting performances - notably from Jean Tissier, who plays the Gallic equivalent of a mad scientist, and Jean Poiret, whose portrayal of a self-serving television executive is less caricature and more grim reality.  Admittedly, the plot – what there is of it – is a bit of a mess and some of the secondary characters are absurd, to a level that is way beyond the bounds of acceptable absurdity, but the film is made with such gusto and has such a sense of fun that you just can’t help indulging its excesses, forgiving its occasional longueurs and laughing out loud at its far from sophisticated jokes.  In the best tradition of French farce, the sillier the film gets, the funnier it becomes – and La Grande lessive gets very, very silly in places.

© filmsdefrance.com 2008

Write a review for this film...


What do you think of this film?

More French Comedy
Recent DVD releases