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La belle Américaine (1961)
Unheralded classic
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.