You can use it to brush up on your French or just to enjoy the action. Downloadable copies are available but so far I haven't seen one with subtitles. 'Red chief' was played by an enchanting youngster named Papouf. In the story two poor men kidnap a boy and hold him in a cave to ransom. 'Le grand chef' (1959) featured Fernandel, then France's leading comic, and Gino Cervi, a prominent Italian actor. Henry follows one of these more uncommon kidnappings. (Lee Aaker of 'Rin Tin Tin' played the boy.) But amazingly the truest and funniest version of this quintessentially American story was filmed in France.
The kidnappers were played by the brilliant radio comedian Fred Allen and the equally brilliant pianist/comedian Oscar Levant so it should have been a winner but somehow it failed to click, to me at least. The story was first filmed in 1952 along with four other stories in 'O.Henry's Full House'. (I can find no record of the Alex Linz version several have referred to it does not appear in his IMDb biography.) This version strikes me as the poorest of the three: too much slapstick, too many extraneous characters (the housemaid, the sheriff/narrator) who only slow down the action. 'Red Chief', one of O.Henry's most engaging stories, has been filmed at least three times.
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