Claude Dauphin

Synopsis:
‘Isabelle dreams of becoming a great actress and so she is over the moon when she is accepted into the Conservatoire, France’s leading drama school. Her talents are immediately spotted by her drama instructor, Professor Lambertin, who is appalled to hear that Isabelle may have to abandon her studies so that she can earn her keep in her adopted parents’ laundrette. Isabelle’s guardians have a change of heart when Lambertin visits them in person and convinces them that his is a noble profession and that their ward has the makings of a fine actress. At the school, Isabelle falls in love with an older student, François, who has a reputation as a lady’s man. When François begins an affair with Isabelle, his former girlfriend Cécilia is consumed with anger and jealousy. She plans to use her theatrical training to inflict on her former lover a cruel and deadly revenge…’
– Films de FranceRead More »

An American gangster sent back to his home country falls in love with a widowed countess.

Letterboxd review
★★★½ Watched by Reza Said 04 Sep 2021

Deported (Robert Siodmak, 1950) 7/10

Atmospheric B-movie is very loosely based on events in the life of Lucky Luciano. An Italian-American gangster (Jeff Chandler) is deported to Italy after spending five years in jail for a robbery in New York. The tough, cynical man finds that the local people in his village look up to him, the street urchins love him and the local Countess (Märta Torén), a widow, is enamoured of him and likes his company. A local cop (Claude Dauphin) is suspicious and lies await for the crook to get the stolen loot across from America. Siodmak, back in Europe after many years in Hollywood, creates an interesting little film which also turns out to be an Italian travelogue with scenes shot by the great William Daniels in Naples, Siena and Tuscany. There is great chemistry between Chandler and Märta Torén while lovely Marina Berti adds to the local colour.Read More »

After surviving a traumatic car accident, a race car driver travels to the Cote D’Azur to recover but is plagued by an urge to strangle his wife.Read More »

Plot:
In this adaptation of Graham Greene’s prophetic novel about U.S. foreign policy failure in pre-war Indochina, Audie Murphy plays an innocent Young American opposite the older, cynical Brit Michael Redgrave. They play out their widely different views on the prospects stuggle for the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people in their competition over a young woman. Murphy wants to reform her and make her a typical middle class American housewife; Redgrave accepts her inability to formulate or retain a political ideal and while promising her no real future, he objects to Murphy’s attempts to change her. It’s not clear whether Murphy is just what he appears – a bungling Yankee do-gooder – or a deliberate agent of U.S. covert operations, but he ends up an expendable pawn in the end. Read More »

Director Henri Decoin and actress Danielle Darrieux made many fine films together (Le Domino vert, Abus de confiance, La Vérité sur Bébé Donge), but few are as charming and funny as the romantic comedy Battement de coeur. Thanks to its prestigious cast, witty dialogue and abundance of comic situations, this fifth Decoin-Darrieux offering is a delight. It was also the last film they made together before their divorce the following year, although they remained friends afterwards and worked together on four subsequent films.Read More »

SYNOPSIS from amg
Running a mere two reels, Van Gogh was fledgling filmmaker Alain Resnais’ first effort in his documentary series about famous artists. Produced by Pierre Braunberger, who would underwrite most of Resnais’ classics of the 1950s and 1960s, the film won several international awards. Concentrating on Van Gogh’s paintings, Resnais charts the artist’s self-destructive streak and descent into madness — and at the same time celebrates his brilliance and “lust for life.” The narration was written by G. Diehl and R. Hessens. The music, which many reviewers felt was the film’s strongest asset, was by Jacques Besse.Read More »

Documentary limning the life of Paris and its citizens during “La Belle Epoque,” the years between 1900 and 1914. Beginning with the Paris Exposition of 1900 and the completion of the Eiffel Tower, the film progresses through cultural, technological, and social changes, from peaceful and sometimes näive times to the rumbling foreshadowing of the war that would disrupt France and Europe for years to come.Read More »

Plot Synopsis:
Two former British Army officers–one smooth, the other stuffy–encounter each other again in Tahiti years after war’s end. The occasion is a hotel chain’s expansion plan, but there’s an unresolved matter of a certain court martial and whose fault it was… Read More »

Synopsis:
In this sci-fi film, a scientist invents a prescient machine that can tell people when they will die. Oddly enough, the people do not want to know and therefore begin to riot…

Review:
With capital supplied by the unscrupulous banker Emil Lasser, Dr Jean Durand succeeds in creating a machine that can predict, to the nearest minute, when an individual will die. A ruthless man facing financial ruin, Lasser intends using Durand’s invention for a crooked life insurance business, but the scientist refuses to go along with the scheme, even though he is in love with Lasser’s daughter, Marie‐France. Subjecting himself to Durand’s machine, Lasser learns he has only a few days left to live. He ends up committing suicide, after leaving a note to his daughter warning her to stay away from Durand. As Marie‐France embarks on a new romance with Durand’s best friend Dr Gérard Gallois, Durand begins capitalising on his invention and soon has a steady stream of clients eager to know the exact date of their demise. The implications of Durand’s discovery soon hits home when people, knowing they have only a short time to live, begin behaving in an irresponsible manner. Durand realises too late that he has created a monster…Read More »