Atlantic Wall (film)

Atlantic Wall (Le Mur de l'Atlantique, Un elmetto pieno di... fifa) is a 1970 French-Italian war-comedy film written and directed by Marcel Camus and starring Bourvil and Peter McEnery. It was Bourvil's last film.

Plot
The story is set during the Second World War, under the occupation of France, and shortly before the Battle of Normandy. Léon Duchemin is a peaceful restaurateur whose wife left him twenty years earlier. He lived in the company of his eccentric sister Maria, and his young adult daughter Juliette. His clients represent the whole of society in the village, ranging from Rommel's driver, to resistance fighters and black market traffickers.

One evening, during an air raid, Jeff, a British aviator whose plane was shot down, almost falls into Juliette's room. The next day, Leon hangs out with Charlus, the craftsman responsible for repainting his storefront. Leon is misidentified as the painter in question and is taken to the Kommandantur, where they have a similar job to offer him. Leon inadvertently carries a secret plan concerning the fortifications of the Atlantic Wall. Having made the acquaintance of Jeff who understands the interest of the discovery made by Leon, the latter is therefore obliged to join the French Resistance. The resistance takes the two men to England. Leon then finds himself in a British army training camp, under the orders of Jeff himself. He does not yet know that his daughter Juliette is pregnant and that the aviator will become his son-in-law.

Cast

 * Bourvil as Léon Duchemin
 * Peter McEnery as  Jeff
 * Sophie Desmarets as  Maria Duchemin
 * Jean Poiret as  Armand
 * Reinhardt Kolldehoff as  Lt. Heinrich Jakobus Steinbichler aka  Totor
 * Sara Franchetti as  Juliette Duchemin
 * Pino Caruso as  Lt. Friedrich
 * Terry-Thomas as   Comm. Perry
 * Jean-Pierre Zola as Colonel Muller
 * Georges Staquet as   Hippolyte
 * Jacques Préboist as  Ernest
 * Johannes Eppler as   Erwin Rommel
 * Annabel Leventon as  Sybil
 * Jackie Sardou as  Angèle Charlus
 * William Mervyn as Jeff's Father
 * Jess Hahn as   British Colonel
 * Patrick Préjean as   British Officer
 * Michel Robin as The Shoemaker
 * Jacques Balutin as   Gendarme
 * Norman Mitchell as First Cop
 * Stephen Yardley as Second Cop

Reception
The film was the second most popular film in France in 1970, after The Gendarme Takes Off.