There is little in common between the two movies.
This is a World War 2 comedy aimed at mending the three nations portrayed together and it did a superb job.
There is no "treasure hunt" and no competition between the protagonists.
imo, this feature is nothing of the sort being alike the "Mad...world", except that they share the genre. in my opinion, "La Grande vadrouille" is closer to the "'Alo 'Alo" series, lol! chasing-the-treasure movies were quite popular on both continents in the sixties, and "Mad...world" should be sooner compared to the British "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines". the latter made me laugh almost constantly, mostly thank to the British stereotype character actors casting, like Robert Morley, Eric Sykes, Terry-Thomas, etc. Americans just couldn't pair it with rather stupendous and bizzare choice of actors who, either don't belong to the genre (Spencer Tracy) or give the comedy its cheepest qualites with their flashy afectations and smirk-faced grueling characters (Dick Shawn, Mickey Rooney...). luckily, all that Jerry Lewis had was an extremely short cameo!
"La Grande vadrouille" is pure Oury French comedy. in it, Ouvry continued his succesful colaboration with Bouvril and de Funes from "Le Corniaud", enriching this feature with solid and hilarious Brittons. the main point is that European and American comedies are miles apart. when one looks good at it, they just don't follow the same patterns, regardless of the subjects they present. even French and British modalities blend better with each other (using different means for achieving comedy) than any of them both or separately would blend with the American. one likes one or another.
Well, they're both comedies, but there the similarities end, AFAIC.
And what's so tiresome about it?
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I never make mistakes. Once I thought I did, but I was wrong.
Being a typical American who refused to watch foreign films I didn't see this movie until a few years back when my French wife forced me to see it. I have seen it 3 times since and I love every second of it.
I have only seen this film in French, (there is some spoken English in the film), without subtitles or dubbing. Even though I don't speak French, (except for some curse words), the film is very easy to follow and understand without knowing French.
This film did strongly reminded me of, It's a mad mad mad mad world, because of it's scope. They are both big, huge (almost epic, if a comedy can be an epic these films are that) sidesplitting funny films. Of course the stories are completely different in both, but both films have the same sort of grand comedy that is quite unique in film. It's almost an unheard of concept today, I think the film, Rat Race tied, but failed a few years back to capture this same kind of feel.
Regardless La grande vadrouille, is on my list as one of the greatest comedies of all time, a pure classic.
not as tiresome as Americans remaking every foreign language film because they are too lazy to read subtitles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5GZIDnMzZQ Why does Canada need a queen?