The Under-Gifted (Les Sous-doués)

Claude Zidi both directed and wrote the 1980 French teen comedy Les Sous-doués (The Under-Gifted). Running about 91 minutes, it tells of the unruly pupils at a private cram school preparing for the baccalauréat. It was a big box-office hit in France and led to a sequel. German audiences know it as Glückwunsch … mal wieder sitzengeblieben and Spanish ones as Los cateados; in Russia the title is Pridurki na ekzamenakh.

The students would rather coast to a diploma than study, and they fill their days with one prank after another. The school's headmistress wants them through the exam at any price, so she tightens discipline; the pupils answer by playing tricks on their teachers. One prank sets off such a chain of coincidences that the school blows up. Brought before a court, the teenagers can stay out of prison only by earning the baccalauréat, cheating if need be. Michel Galabru, Maria Pacôme and a young Daniel Auteuil lead the cast, joined by Henri Attal, Robert Dalban, Catherine Erhardy, Dominique Hulin, Étienne Draber and Féodor Atkine.

For the shoot, a building in Versailles stands in for the cram school named Cours Louis XIV.