How Boeing-Boeing Became a High-Flying Hit of a Sex Farce

"The Big Comedy of Nineteen-Sexty-Sex!" trumped the tagline for the swinging 1966 film version of Boeing-Boeing, the French sex farce that has been titillating and tickling audiences around the world for close to 50 years. It even holds the record for the most-performed French play in the world. Now that Marc Camoletti's comedy is back on Broadway, Broadway.com decided to figure out what it is about this play, centering on a Parisian playboy and his three flight attendant fiancées, that has kept it flying high for decades.

Camoletti's soufflé of a show is the epitome of a classic bedroom farce, meaning it features slamming doors, delicious innuendo and spectacularly improbable situations. In this case, Bernard, the Parisian playboy in question, manages to juggle his three relationships to the chagrin of his faithful maid Berthe because he has them on a scrupulous timetable, but when the Boeing corporation starts using new technology, air traffic gets faster. Suddenly, Bernard's international stewardesses—and his love life—hit some major turbulence.

The poster for 1966's adults-only film version

A distinctly European form of theater, the first farces popped up in both France and England in the 14th century. From works by Georges Feydeau to Joe Orton, it is still a popular form of entertainment across the pond. Boeing-Boeing is a good example of how precisely timed silliness, sex and slapstick are still a potent form of amusement for our friends on the Continent.

The play was first a hit in Paris in 1960—watch out, Phantom, it ran for 19 years! An English translation by Beverley Cross made it to London in 1962, where the production, originally headlined by David Tomlinson who later became immortalized on celluloid as Mr. Banks in the 1964 classic Mary Poppins, clocked in its own astounding seven-year run. It transferred to the Great White Way in 1965 to a less than stellar reception; in fact, it closed after just 23 performances at the Cort Theatre. "Thousands of Frenchmen and Englishmen couldn't be wrong, could they?" asked The New York Times' Howard Taubman at the time. Although something may have gotten lost in the cross-Atlantic transfer, American audiences weren't finished with the play just yet. Later that year, they would be introduced to the movie version, starring Jerry Lewis, Tony Curtis and a priceless performance by Thelma Ritter.

Funny In Every Language: Recent productions in Austria, London & Singapore

Boeing-Boeing's convoluted plot obviously inspired many filmmakers: there are about a dozen movie versions. Although most of them were made in Europe there are Dutch, Norwegian, Italian and German titles to name a few, even Bollywood got in the game. There are two Indian versions, both by the same director-one from 1985 and one from 2005. The latter is called Garam Masala—literally "hot spice"—and, unlike most of the filmed Boeings, this one takes place in the present. Yet the lusty and ludicrous stewardess-juggling premise remained intact.

The stage version of Boeing-Boeing has also continued to soar all over the world. It has enjoyed productions in Scandinavia, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Italy, South Africa, Australia, India and most recently back in London's West End in the Matthew Warchus-directed production that has now come back to Broadway and opens at the Longacre Theatre on May 4.

When the show opened in London last year, its producer Sonia Friedman noted that despite its misogynistic tendencies, she was swayed by the comic possibilities. "Boeing-Boeing has this reputation of being this old-fashioned '60s—arguably—sexist comedy," Friedman told Broadway.com at the time. She claimed that director Warchus convinced her by promising, "to keep it in the '60s but not pastiche it, and make it really chic and Parisian with a modern feel and a modern twist."

The creative team treated the low-art form of farce with high-end finesse; the casting of respected Shakespearean actor Mark Rylance as a provincial houseguest is a perfect case in point. The play also starred Olivier Award winners Roger Allam and Frances de la Tour. "The triumph of Warchus' production," as The Guardian's Michael Billington put it, "is that he presents us with real people rather than mechanical objects." Needless to say, it was lauded by London critics. Rylance repeats his London triumph for Broadway, with American stage and screen favorites Bradley Whitford, Christine Baranski, Gina Gershon and Mary McCormack along for the ride.

In keeping with its miniskirt-and-matching-bag sensibility, this new Boeing-Boeing is stylish to the very end: the curtain call. The London version featured a choreographed bow from Dancing with the Stars' Bruno Tonioli, retooled for Broadway by Tony-winning choreographer Kathleen Marshall. As Daisy Beaumont, who played the Italian stewardess in the London production, put it: "We want a kind of an Austin Powers feel at the end."

As the international man of mystery would say, "Yeah, baby!"