À nous les petites Anglaises! (1976)
Directed by Michel Lang

Film Review

Director Michel Lang made a promising feature debut with this bittersweet portrayal of adolescence, set in Ramsgate (that well-known Mecca for French students) during the rock and roll years.  Characteristically for this director, the cast consists mainly of inexperienced and non-professional actors and is shot almost entirely on location.  This gives the film a near-documentary naturalism and immediacy which is quite rare for a French film of this period.

The film is interesting for its amusingly Gallic portrayal of the English, who are naturally portrayed as tea-drinking barbarians who cannot take their liquor and exist on a diet of blancmange and jelly.  The funniest moments are in the scenes where the two central characters, Jean-Pierre and Alain, interact with their host families.  Inevitably, there is at least one member of each household who finds their French lodger irresistible and will do anything to seduce him.  Not surprising then that both lads end up looking like beleaguered prisoners of war.

The principals - Rémi Laurent, Stéphane Hillel and Véronique Delbourg - all make their film debut here and it is their sympathetic and believable performances which made the film a comparative box office hit.  Music from the period is supplemented by work from Mort Shuman, a composer who had work for Elvis Presley, giving the film an authentic late fifties feel, which doubtless added to its nostalgia value.  Although Michel Lang made several films in a similar vein, notably L'Hôtel de la plage (1978), few of these come even close to matching the beguiling charm and sincerity of À nous les petites Anglaises!, which is now a sadly overlooked little gem.

Film Synopsis

France, 1959.  Jean-Pierre and Alain's reward for failing their final year exams is to have their trip to St Tropez cancelled.  Instead, their parents bundle them off to Ramsgate in England, in the hope that this will allow them to improve their English.  You'd have thought that the prospect of being stuck for the entire summer in a wet, foggy backwater when no one can speak a civilised language like French would have dimmed their enthusiasm.  But no, Jean-Pierre and Alain are looking forward to their holiday in Shakespeare Land - if only to try out their powers of seduction on the local girls.  Well, everyone knows that English girls are turned on by a French accent...  The lads' illusions are soon shattered when it becomes apparent that, far from being passionate lovers, English girls do not even know how to kiss properly!  Have they no idea what tongues are for?  Their Gallic ardour well and truly dampened, Jean-Pierre and Alain amuse themselves with their fellow students.  It isn't long before they are experiencing the delights and upsets of teen love in a cold Kentish climate...