[CR] Cycling film - Jour de fete

(Example: Framebuilders:Mario Confente)

From: "Dr. Paul Williams" <castell5@sympatico.ca>
To: Classic Rendezvous <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:13:31 -0500
Subject: [CR] Cycling film - Jour de fete


As I was casting around for lists of cycling films I came across the title "Jour de Fete" (1949) by Jacques Tati and I just had to check it out. I have been a lifelong Tati fan ever since my father took me as a kid to see M. Hulot's Holiday (still one of my alll time favourite films). Anyway, Jour de Fete, while not quite as funny for me, has some hilarious cycling related scenes involving Tati as Francois the postman. Riding an upright single-speed, Francois becomes obsessed with trying to increase the "rapidite" of the postal delivery after seeing a film about advances in America. There is one great scene towards the end of the film where he rides straight through a pack of racing cyclists and leads from the front. The whole film can be watched at:

http://tinyurl.com/dyhayz

Paul Williams, Ottawa, ON, Canada

Paul B. Williams, BAH (Laurier), MPhil (Cardiff, Wales), PhD (Queen's) Dept. of Geography and Environmental Studies, Carleton University, castell5@sympatico.ca paul_williams@carleton.ca