Main Cast: Jean Carmet, Jacques Dufilho, Catherine Rouvel, Jacques Spiesser, Dora Doll
Release Year: 1976
Country: FR
Run Time: 100 minutes
Plot
The inaugural film effort of French director Jean-Jacques Annaud, Black and White in Color is set during World War I. Upon the outbreak of hostilities, a French trading post in West Central Africa finds itself at odds with a formerly peaceful German post, for no other reason than their parent countries are at war. The newly xenophobic French traders attack the Germans, only to fail in their efforts. Socialist Jacques Spiesser is put in charge of the debilitated French contingent, utterly discarding his former high ideals in the process. Filmed on location on the Ivory Coast, the satirical Black and White in Color (originally La Victoire en Chantant) won the American Academy Award for Best Foreign Film of 1976. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Maurice Barrier - Caprice; Claude Legros - Jacques Rechampot; Jacques Monnet - Pere Simon; Peter Berling - Pere Jean de la Croix; Marius Beugre Boignan - Barthelemy; Baye Macoumba Diop - Lamartine; Klaus Huebel - Haussmann; Aboutbaker Toure - Fidele; Marc Zuber - Major Anglais; Jacques Perrin; Dieter Schidor - Kraft
Credit
Max Douy - Art Director, Jean-Jacques Annaud - Director, Françoise Bonnot - Editor, Pierre Bachelet - Composer (Music Score), Gisele Jacquin - Makeup, Claude Agostini - Cinematographer, Arthur Cohn - Producer, Jacques Perrin - Producer, Giorgio Silagni - Producer, Max Douy - Set Designer, Alain Curvelier - Sound/Sound Designer, Jean-Jacques Annaud - Screenwriter, Georges Conchon - Screenwriter
Black and White in Color (French: La Victoire en chantant, then Noirs et blancs en couleur for the 1977 re-issue) is a 1976war film or rather, a black comedy directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud as his directorial debut. It depicts Frenchcolonists at war with the Germans in the Ivory Coast, Africa, during World War I. The film adopts a strong antimilitaristic point of view, and is noteworthy for ridiculing the French side even more harshly than their German counterparts.
The original French title is the first four words (the first line) of the song Le Chant du départ, a French military song.
