

A wealthy and bored woman is witness of a murder in affection and meets another witness. She asks him about the history of the victim and falls in love with him.Read More »
A wealthy and bored woman is witness of a murder in affection and meets another witness. She asks him about the history of the victim and falls in love with him.Read More »
When his father, a wealthy industrialist, is killed in aeroplane crash, Bart Cordell returns to France to take up the reins of the empire he has inherited. As a prostitute attempts to frame him for drug smuggling, Bart begins to suspect is father may have been murdered. His investigation uncovers a complex web of political intrigue, in which his own family and his stepfather are heavily implicated…Read More »
Jean-Paul Belmondo delivers a subtly sensual performance in the hot-under-the-collar Léon Morin, Priest (Léon Morin, prêtre), directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. The French superstar plays a devoted man of the cloth who is desired by all the women of a small village in Nazi-occupied France. He finds himself most drawn to a sexually frustrated widow—played by Emmanuelle Riva—a religious skeptic whose relationship with her confessor turns into a confrontation with both God and her own repressed desire. A triumph of mood, setting, and innuendo, Léon Morin, Priest is an irreverent pleasure from one of French cinema’s towering virtuosos.Read More »
Set during World War II, and stuck on the beaches near Dunkirk, Julien Maillat tries to join England by boat with the English Army, but cannot succeed. He, then, tries to organize the life for him and his soldiers friends between German raids and shells.Read More »
Quote:
Sam Lion has led a full and successful life. As a young boy, abandoned by his mother, he was adopted by a circus family, where he developed an afinity for big cats. His career as a circus acrobat was cut short by an accident, after which he started a new life in commerce. His revolutionary cleaning products made him a wealthy man, the head of a corporate empire, but his private life was just as eventful. He marred young, had two children, his first wife died tragically, and he re-married. Now in his fifties, Sam has only one wish – to escape. Whilst crossing the ocean in a one-man dinghy, he decides to fake his own death.Read More »
Synopsis:
Farce, spy spoof, and adventure. Swarthy thieves ignore jewels to steal an Amazon figurine from the Museum of Man in Paris’ Trocadero Palace and kidnap the world’s authority on the lost Maltec civilization. Cut to Agnes, the daughter of a murdered man who possessed one of two other such figurines. Moments after her sweetheart, Adrien, an Army private with a week’s leave, arrives in Paris to see her, Agnes too is kidnapped, drugged, and loaded on a plane to Rio. Adrien is in hot pursuit, and before he can rescue her (with the help of a shoeshine boy), foil the murderous thieves, and solve the riddle of the Maltecs, he must traverse Rio, Brasília, and the Amazon heartland… all before the end of his week’s leave.Read More »
Quote:
The adventures of a young Senegalese, Abdoulaye Faye, who comes to Paris to try his luck as a boxer. His dream of winning the championship and conquering women – especially Michèle Morgan – whom he worships, his his adaptation to Paris life, the cold and fog which astonish him, occupy his thoughts. He meets a Japanese woman in the Bois de Boulogne, consults a medium. And then comes the championship fight.
Critique award, Venice Film festival, 1962.
Cameo of Jean-Paul Belmondo, as a member of the audience during the fight of the young Abdoulaye Faye.
Music by Michel Legrand and Georges Delerue.Read More »
Autour de Jacques Baratier & Sweet and Sour
By Elliott Stein – Tuesday, April 14th 2009 – Village Voice
(Jacques Baratier, 1963). This fascinating nearly plot-less feature from eccentric Baratier, a director hardly known in America, is a quirky riff on cinema verite, with guest appearances from a dazzling array of European luminaries from the 60s including Simone Signoret, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Monica Vitti, and Roger Vadim. It was shot by the great Henri Decae, cinematographer of The Four Hundred Blows, Plein Soleil and La Ronde.Read More »
Synopsis:
Fed-up with the inefficiency of the Marseille police, Paris sends drug-enforcement specialist Philippe Jordan to Marseille. He’s supposed to assist the local law enforcement dismantle the drug networks, especially mobster Sauveur Mecacci’s network. So far, Mecacci has managed to elude capture or successful prosecution by local authorities. However, Inspector Philippe Jordan’s unorthodox law enforcement style may prove efficient against Mecacci if Jordan receives a free-hand green-light from the Marseille police bosses and if he survives the frequent attempts against his life, of course. Once at work, Inspector Philippe Jordan’s rough style creates mayhem in the city of Marseille and triggers numerous complaints from the Mayor’s Office, from outraged citizens and from the lawyers of a scared Mecacci who wants to see Jordan dead. These things, in turn, tell Jordan he’s on the right track.Read More »