Trivia / Les Tontons flingueurs

• Dawson Casting: A minor case for Sabine Sinjen, who plays high school senior Patricia (17-18). She was 21 at the time.
• Fake Nationality
  • Lino Ventura was born in Italy, lived mostly in France, spoke French perfectly and made his career there, but never took French citizenship. He still played mostly French characters.
  • As for Sabine Sinjen, she was German and her part had to be dubbed by a French voice actress.
• Follow the Leader: This movie started a trend of gangster comedies in French cinema in the sixties and early seventies, with Michel Audiard writing and even directing some of them.
• Production Posse
  • Georges Lautner, Michel Audiard and Lino Ventura teamed up for two other movies, Les Barbouzes and Ne nous fâchons pas.
  • Francis Blanche (Maître Folace) and Bernard Blier (Raoul Volfoni) played in Les Barbouzes while Jean Lefebvre (Paul Volfoni) starred in Ne nous fâchons pas.
  • Robert Dalban (Jean the butler) appeared in a lot of French gangster comedies of the time, including Les Tontons Flingueurs, Les Barbouzes and Ne nous fâchons pas as well as the Monocle series (Le Monocle Noir, L'Œil du Monocle and Le Monocle Rit Jaune) as another cult character, Retired Badass Monsieur Poussin (literally "Mister Baby-bird").
• Self-Adaptation: The author of the novel the film is based off, Albert Simonin, participated to the script.
• What Could Have Been: Georges Lautner wanted actress Mireille Darc to appear in the film, but she had booked holiday reservations and didn't want to cancel. She made up for it by appearing in both Les Barbouzes and Ne nous fâchons pas.

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