Start the Revolution Without Me

Start the Revolution Without Me is a 1970 film directed by Bud Yorkin, starring Gene Wilder, Donald Sutherland, Hugh Griffith, Jack MacGowran, Billie Whitelaw, Orson Welles playing himself as narrator and Victor Spinetti. The comedy is set in revolutionary France where two peasants are mistaken for the famous swordsmen, the Corsican Brothers. It can be considered a parody of a number of works of historical fiction about the French Revolution, including Dickens A Tale of Two Cities and Dumas The Corsican Brothers and The Man in the Iron Mask.

Start the Revolution Without Me authors Fred Freeman and Lawrence J. Cohen were nominated for a WGA award for Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen in 1971.As a spoof, the film has no pretense of historical accuracy. Louis XVI, who wasyears old at the time of his death, is played by Hugh Griffith, who was in his late fifties when the film was shot. He is portrayed as a bumbling cuckold. Marie Antoinette, here called simply Marie, is portrayed as a nymphomaniac. The French Revolution is depicted as being led exclusively by the impoverished masses, while most revolutionary leaders were actually middle or upperclass citizens. The film also portrays the man in the iron mask, who actually lived during the reign of Louis XIV. The princess Christina from Belgium is also a person in the movie, but in reality she does not exist and Belgium was only founded in 1830. ........

Source: Wikipedia