French Originals

A good friend told me the other day that she went to the premiere of a movie called "Dinner with Schmucks". The title sounded vaguely familiar to me, so I asked her what it was about. She uttered maybe 5 words before it hit me - it was a remake of a French movie that I absolutely love, called "Diner de Cons".

This made me think of the countless times when the French were quick to point out to me that a lot of things that, to me, are American are actually French in origin.

I was once flabbergasted and incredulous when we heard Frank Sinatra belt out "My Way" one day, and one of PeeWee's friends turned to me with what resembled panic in his eyes, and asked me, you do know that this song is actually a French song? I of course went, "no way". He was insistent and accused the Old Blue Eyes of stealing a very well known French song called "Comme d'habitude" by a hugely popular (and dead) singer called Claude Francois - huh? I thought this to be evidence that everyday Frenchmen still suffer from illusions of grandeur from the country once being a World Power.

Then came a series of American movies that I actually knew to have been French originally, because I had actually seen them in French a few years before they were adapted by US studios: "Three Men and a Baby", "La Femme Nikita", "Cousins", etc.

Then a month or so ago, I came across an old article in Vanity Fair about the heydays of Disco, and it says that two of the founding members of the Village People were French!! Wow! I sure was impressed!

Give them credit where it's due, I guess. Now I am dying to see Dinner with Schmucks. The Schmuck is played by Steve Carell, and I think he will have a lot to live up to - the original character is played by Jacques Villeret, a very famous (and now dead) actor. Compare the two:

The French one:

The American one: