ABSTRACT
Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot turned out to be a success the very first week of its release. Not a big hit: the 300,000 seats sold in Paris put it in seventh position in the 1953 box office. Hollywood had lost its predominance, and the winners of the year were French–Italian co-productions – Le Retour de Don Camillo and Le Salaire de la peur, two expensive, cleverly made, well photographed pictures. An American movie as lavish as the former, The Greatest Show on Earth, came third. As for the other three films the difference with Hulot was small: Tati could easily have been in fourth place. At least, his was the first French film on the 1953 list (Centre Nationale de la Cinématographie, 1954).
