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 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. Two sets of identical twins, played by Wilder and Sutherland, are... accidentally switched at birth. One set, Phillipe and Pierre DeSisi, is aristocratic and haughty, while the other set, Charles and Claude Coupé, poor and dim-witted. On the eve of the French Revolution, both sets find themselves entangled in palace intrigues. 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.
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| Release date: | February 4, 1970 |
| Directed by: | Bud Yorkin |
| Rated: |  |
| Runtime: | 90 Minutes |
| Producer: | Bud Yorkin |
| Screenplay by: | Larry Cohen, Fred Freeman |
| Genre: | Comedy |