Christmas with a French Flavor, Episode 316

<p>Ready to learn about Christmas with a French flavor? In this episode Annie talks about the real story of Christmas as far as French people are concerned.</p> <p>And because it’s Christmas and we all want a nice giggle, I will also tell you about the French film classic about Christmas called “Le Père Noël est une Ordure”, definitely not your average Christmas movie and I’ll tell you why it’s been such a big hit in France for decades!</p> <h2>Christmas with a French Flavor: Le Père Noël est une ordure</h2> <p><a href="https://amzn.to/2Kc42Xp">Le Père Noël est une ordure</a>. This movie came out in 1982 and it wasn’t a big hit at first because it is quirky, and I should probably say extremely quirky! But, seeing that it’s one of the few movies about Christmas made in France and it was cheap to buy, TV stations started showing it every year and it grew on us.</p> <h3>American Remake: Mixed Nuts</h3> <p>There is a remake of it called <a href= "https://amzn.to/3mCZXbL">Mixed Nuts</a> with Steve Martin and that one came out in 1994. It’s a similar story line, but not as gritty as the French version. The preview is really funny, it’s on Amazon Prime. It wasn’t popular for a Norah Ephrom film, but we’ll watch it on Christmas day because it seems fitting for 2020!</p> <h3>La Troupe du Splendid</h3> <p>Pere Noel est une ordure is from the same group of folks who brough us Les Bronzés, they were a theater troupe who started making movies and all of them became cult movies. Les Bronzés came out in 1978, Les Bronzés font du Ski in 1979 and Le Père Noël est une Ordure in 1982.</p> <p>It started out as a play with the same cast and that’s why almost everything in the movie happens in the same room. The actors didn’t think anybody would like this movie because it’s so over the top, but it did! And all the actors in the troupe got extremely popular individually leading to the group splitting up and reuniting only on occasion.</p> <h3>Santa Is a Piece of Garbage</h3> <p>The title Le Père Noël est une Ordure means Santa is a pie