It doesn't exist on DVD, it hasn't even made it to VHS, and it never appears on broadcast or cable. So you should have no trouble believing me when I say that this movie I saw once 30 years ago is memorable.
A slapstick commentary on class relationships, La Belle Américaine is propelled by the plans of a French manufacturer of a metal rod with no clear consumer or industrial function to update the manufacturing process and get rid of their quirky employees. It has a running joke: the pre-automation process utilizes a hilarious Rube Goldbergesque assembly line entailing a final stage where, in a cloud of steam, the machine jams up and dies, only to be revived by a swift kick in just the right place, after which it duly puoits out (that's the sound it makes) one of the mysterious rods. Post-automation, the bustling factory is replaced by a single huge drab and perfectly rectangular machine, which the company president demonstrates for a major stockholder. The new machine hums along peacefully, in contrast to the previous cacophonous process, but at the final stage it sputters and dies, just like the pre-automation machine; the president gives it a solid kick, and it puoits out the rod.
A slapstick commentary on class relationships, La Belle Américaine is propelled by the plans of a French manufacturer of a metal rod with no clear consumer or industrial function to update the manufacturing process and get rid of their quirky employees. It has a running joke: the pre-automation process utilizes a hilarious Rube Goldbergesque assembly line entailing a final stage where, in a cloud of steam, the machine jams up and dies, only to be revived by a swift kick in just the right place, after which it duly puoits out (that's the sound it makes) one of the mysterious rods. Post-automation, the bustling factory is replaced by a single huge drab and perfectly rectangular machine, which the company president demonstrates for a major stockholder. The new machine hums along peacefully, in contrast to the previous cacophonous process, but at the final stage it sputters and dies, just like the pre-automation machine; the president gives it a solid kick, and it puoits out the rod.