A 1966 French-Italian Comedy Drama directed by Philippe De Broca that has a British Private (Alan Bates) being mistaken for a king by former insane asylum patients.
The movie also stars Jacques Balutin, Daniel Boulanger, Pierre Brasseur, Jean Claude Brialy, Geneviève Bujold, Pier Paolo Capponi, and Adolfo Celi.
It was released on December 21, 1966.
Tropes for the film:
- Accidental Misnaming: The colonel keeps calling Plumpick "Pumpernickel".
- Calvinball: The card game the asylum inhabitants is stated to not have any rules.
- Clock Tower: Charles Plumpick realizes at the last minute that the bomb the retreating German army planted that would blow up the village is triggered by a clockwork figure in the lower striking a bell.
- Eccentric Townsfolk: The inhabitants of the town are escaped patients from the local mental institution.
- Go Among Mad People: The madmen become the sane people in the abandoned, war-torn town.
- I Choose to Stay: After the adventure, Charles is to be redeployed in another town. Upon passing the asylum, he decides to admit himself.
- Line-of-Sight Alias: Charles, when first hiding in the Asylum from the Germans is faking playing cards and chooses "The King of Hearts" from the cards he has.
- Loon with a Heart of Gold: A whole asylum is full of these types, who take over a town that the Germans (the setting is World War I) has booby-trapped (the locals fled without bothering to evacuate them). Charles Plumpick of the Signal Corps comes to find and defuse the bomb, not knowing they aren't regular townsfolk. Bittersweet hilarity ensues.
- Man in a Kilt: Plumpick wears a kilt as the uniform of his regiment - the ladies in the village brothel find it appealing.
- Only Sane Man: Private Charles Plumpick is literally the only sane man in the French town of Marville, due to it having been evacuated by the regular citizenry before being repopulated by escaped denizens of the local insane asylum.
- Spy Speak: "The mackerel likes frying." Is a code phrase transmitted to the Scottish regiment. However, "The Knight strikes at Midnight" means what it says (meaning that when the clocktower goes off, a knight pops out and will activate the bombs).
- Tagline: "De Broca's Crowning Triumph!".
- Unproblematic Prostitution: The inmates of an abandoned insane asylum find their way into a deserted village in World War I France, and set up business there, including a bordello that feels like a pleasant social club.
- Young Future Famous People: A young Adolf Hitler is among the Germans and briefly appears at the beginning of the film.
