Duck Soup + The Coronation of Edward VII + Tunnelling the English Channel

Duck Soup

The gleefully absurdist satire that characterises this most memorably Marxian account of European manners centres on Ruritanian nations happy to go to war over a mild verbal insult (that said, the rent on the battlefield was paid in advance). Patriotism, politics, diplomacy and military heroism all receive a comic kicking, while the mirror scene (did Europeans really wear such nightgarb?) is a masterpiece of timing.

The Coronation of Edward VII

Tunnelling the English Channel

Two brief but typically delightful forays into an imagined Britain by the pioneering French maestro of fantasy cinema.