Film / The 7th Company

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The 7th Company (La 7ème Compagnie) is a 1970s French war comedy film trilogy produced by Gaumont. All films were directed by Robert Lamoureux (who also had a role in it).

The films tell the comical adventures of three not very bright but quite lucky World War II French soldiers of the 7th Transmission Company, Chief-Sergeant Chaudard (Pierre Mondy), Tassin (Aldo Maccione in the first film and Henri Guybet in the sequels) and Pithivier (Jean Lefebvre), during the Battle of France in May-June 1940 and beyond.

While their unit under the command of Capitaine Dumont (Pierre Tornade) gets quickly captured by the Germans, the trio gets lost somewhere on the moving frontlines and wander in the forests and countryside as German soldiers start occupying the country. They are joined by fellow soldiers at times, though often end up three again.

The trilogy includes:

• Now Where Did the 7th Company Get to? (Mais où est donc passée la 7ème compagnie ?, 1973)
• The 7th Company Has Been Found (On a retrouvé la 7ème compagnie, 1975)
• The 7th Company Outdoors (La 7ème Compagnie au clair de lune, 1977)

A number of the crews and actors who made the films also worked on The Day of Glory and Operation Lady Marlene, which are also comedies set in German-occupied France during World War II.

• Artistic Licence – History: The Distant Finale, in June 1944. There were indeed French soldiers who were parachuted in France ^note in Brittany, more specifically on June 5th 1944 (the day before D-Day) to disrupt German reinforcements that would head to Normandy, but they were SAS commandos, i.e. trained and equipped by the British, and they jumped during the night. The 7th Company trio wears American uniforms and jump in broad daylight.
• Cut Phone Lines: Chaudard, Tassin and Pithivier, who are tasked to deploy a transmission cable (the company's whole job), do it at a place that gets in the view of German soldiers, who then cut the cable with a shear. Consequently, the trio is unable to warn the 7th company about the approach of the Germans.
• Distant Finale: The bulk of the film takes place in May-June 1940. The epilogue takes place in June 1944.
• Dressing as the Enemy:
  • The three soldiers and Duvauchel steal helmets and a half-track tow truck equipped with an anti-tank cannon after Tassin gunned down the German crew. They pass as Germans by speaking French with a dreadful German-ish accent to various French people, including a very enthusiastic grocer to having him give them food supplies for free and a family that flees the German advance they give some of said supplies to.
  • A German squad sets up ambushes on French convoys by disguising themselves as French gendarmes. Their cover is blown when they make the "Heil Hitler" salute to the trio and Duvauchel whom they believe are Germans.
• Fauxreigner: The trio steals German helmets and a German half-track. They try to pass as Germans, and Pithivier tries speaking French with a dreadful German-ish accent to the locals, and it works with the complacent grocer who welcomes the Germans.
• Shirtless Scene: After stealing a German half-track, the trio and Duvauchel spend most of the remaining screentime shirtless, only wearing German steel helmets to pretend being Germans.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: The opening music, with the 7th Company's leitmotif being rather heroic/solemn and more in line with regular war films, accompanied by newspaper articles showing the progression of the Battle of France in 1940. It doesn't let the viewer know that this is a comedy.
• Trapped Behind Enemy Lines: The trio gets lost in the woods just as the German army starts occupying France. Also counts for Duvauchel, the downed fighter pilot who joins them.

• All for Nothing: The plan to have the high rank French officers escape from the castle is ruined when Tassin makes the tunnel's forest exit collapse by opening its door too large. All the officers get recaptured as a result.
• Becoming the Mask: Chaudard rapidly takes his role as a Colonel seriously when he wears a Colonel uniform.
• Black Comedy Animal Cruelty: Pithivier inadvertently shoots a cow dead with the rifle of the German soldier who was watching over him and Tassin, because he knows how a French Lebel rifle works but not a German Mauser.
• Cover Identity Anomaly: The trio wears Colonel (Chaudard) and Lieutenant (Tassin and Pithivier) uniforms and they prentend to be high rank officers. A real officer introduces himself to them. In turn, Chaudard introduces himself and he says he is from the Transmissions arm. Another officer then informs him that the uniform he wears is the one of an artillery officer.
• Flashback with the Other Darrin: The scene where the three soldiers help the 7th Company prisoners to flee under the nose of the Germans at the end of the first film was redone for the beginning of this one with Henri Guybet as Tassin instead of Aldo Maccione.
• Great Escape: The trio escapes from the castle. They try to make all the prisoners escape too, but it fails.
• Happy Ending Override: The 7th Company is recaptured by the Germans not long into the film, after Chaudard, Tassin, Pithivier and Duvauchel liberated them at the end of the first film.
• Immediate Sequel: In the end of Now Where Did the 7th Company Get to? (just before the epiloque), the heroes free the 7th Company under the nose of their German captors. The sequel starts at this very moment.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: Tassin shut the door at the exit of the tunnel, while the escaped prisoners are still inside. He pulls the door so hard that the exit of the tunnel collapses and the prisoners are trapped inside and cannot escape.
• Plunger Detonator: Colonel Blanchet uses one to blow up the bridges that the trio is going over.
• Previously on…: The film starts with a summary of the first film.
• Quest for Sex: The woman from the farm near the castle really craves for sex with soldiers and targets Tassin, providing him the plans of the castle's Secret Underground Passage and expecting him to sleep at her farm that night. She eagerly waits for him at the exit of the passage... only for Chaudard to come out. While disappointed for a second, she doesn't mind and goes after Chaudard, who has to run away not to be raped. Then, frustrated, she bumps into a bunch of German Feldgendarmerie soldiers on a road and happily invites them at the farm. And just when she's about to have a good time with them, they have to leave to chase after the trio, much to her frustration, again.
• Secret Underground Passage: There is one from behind a tapestry in the castle to the wood.
• Smart People Play Chess: Subverted. The German commander of the castle wants to play chess with Cpt. Dumont, but he is not very bright, as shown by the way he plays chess and the fact that he does not realize there is an escape attempt under way.
• Train Escape: Type 3. Tassin unhooks the wagons so that the German soldiers cannot catch the trio, that is in the locomotive.
• Wire Dilemma: Unusually for the trope, there's a wire dilemna about blowing stuff up instead of disarming it. Colonel Blanchet has to blow up a bridge to slow down the German advance. He keeps repeating to himself "The green wire on the green plug and the red wire on the red plug"... then finds out the Plunger Detonator has white and black plugs. He then connects the wires to the plugs as a German company is crossing the bridge and activates it... to no effect. He then switches the wire... just as Chaudard, Tassin and Pithivier (in German disguise and in the German tow truck) cross the bridge and blows it up, not knowing they are French.

• Abandon Ship: When Lambert and the German soldiers accompanying him spot the sea mines in the nets behind the fishing trawler stolen by Chaudard, Tassin and Pithivier, they jump off their motor torpedo boat, just before it explodes.
• Chase Scene:
  • The trio goes to the Kommandantur, where Lambert recognizes them. They immediately drive away, but Lambert and German soldiers follow them.
  • At the end, Lambert and a squad of German soldiers use a motor torpedo boat to chase the trio, who are in a fishing trawler. It ends with the motor torpedo boat getting destroyed by sea mines that were caught in the trawler's fishing nets.
• Distant Sequel: The film starts two years after the previous one, in 1942. After their Train Escape, Chaudard, Tassin and Pithivier have returned to civilian life.
• Fauxreigner: The trio slips bomber jackets on and tries to pass as English pilots, so that M. Albert brings them to the Zone Libre.
• Green Around the Gills: The combined smells of fish and fuel oil make Chaudard want to puke in the climax when the trio steals a fishing trawler to go to England. He's probably seasick too.
• Hero Stole My Bike: In the climax, when stranded in a fishing harbour in Brittany, Chaudard, Tassin and Pithivier steal a fishing trawler and sail to England.
• Mistaken for Cheating: Chaudard's wife hides Gilles, an agent of La Résistance, in her cellar. Tassin overhears their conversation and he thinks that Gilles is her lover. He later tells Chaudard about it, and when Chaudard meets Gilles, he punches him.
• Named in the Sequel: Chaudard's first name gets mentioned in the film - Paul, that is.
• Previously on…: The film's opening credits are made of footage of the previous two films.
• La Résistance: Chaudard's wife and his brother-in-law are agents of the Resistance. Chaudard, Tassin and Pithivier are mistaken for Resistance fighters as a result of being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
• Sea Mine: With the fishing trawler they stole, Chaudard, Tassin and Pithivier sail to England... until Chaudard lets the vessel's wheel turn several times by mistake, bringing them back to French coasts where the Germans have deployed sea mines. They're lucky enough to graze the mines without exploding, and the mines get caught in the trawler's fishing nets. As a result, when they're being chased by Lambert and a German squad on a motor torpedo boat, the motor torpedo boat ends up destroyed as it hits the mines that were caught in the nets.
• "Wanted!" Poster: Following the night they got mistaken for La Résistance and caused the plane/truck explosion, newspapers publish the photos (arranged as mugshots) of Chaudard, Tassin and Pithivier as "terrorists".
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The film doesn't address what happened to the rest of the 7th Company after the end of the second film, including Capitaine Dumont (Pierre Tornade) and Colonel Blanchet (Robert Lamoureux). Dumont and the 7th Company are presumably still prisoners and locked in a German P.O.W. Camp by this point, and Blanchet was last seen free and blowing up bridges.