A restored print of Georges Lautner’s Great Spy Chase (Les Barbouzes)

Georges Lautner presents The Great Spy Chase, better known as Les Barbouzes, in Cannes Classics. This timeless 1964 comedy restored by Gaumont and Eclair, stars a team of actors who feature in the cast of over a dozen movies by the same director.

The year before, in 1963, Georges Lautner directed the classic Tontons Flingueurs (Crooks in Clover) from a screenplay by Michel Audiard with a cast of actors who were to become his most loyal collaborators: Lino Ventura, Bernard Blier, Mireille Darc or Francis Blanche and many others. The group would go on to star in a more than a dozen movies including Flic or voyou (Cop or Hood), The Professional or Les Barbouzes.

Les Barbouzes tells the story of four secret agents working for four different governments looking for the same top secret document. Mixing humour, seduction and shoot-outs, Les Barbouzes is the second chapter of a long adventure in movie partnership that lasted more than twenty years.

QP

Les Barbouzes will be screened on 24 May in the Buñuel Theatre