Jean-Pierre Aumont

  • Santos Alcocer & Edward Mann – El coleccionista de cadáveres AKA Cauldron of Blood (1968)

    Edward Mann1961-1970HorrorSantos AlcocerSpainSpanish cinema under FrancoThriller

    A blind sculptor works on his magnum opus, unaware that the skeletons that he has been using for armatures are the remains of the victims of his evil wife and that he is her next target.Read More »

  • Jacques de Baroncelli – Belle Etoile (1938)

    Jacques de Baroncelli1931-1940ComedyDramaFrance

    IMDB user review:
    Jacques De Baroncelli was a prolific director ,active from the silent age (1916)up to post-war years (“Rocambole” 1947).”La Duchesse De Langeais”(1942) is considered his best work.

    This one is a comedy.The beginning might remind some users of a famous scene of the all-time classic “it’s a wonderful life” -which had still to be made in 1938-: a young man ,weary of life ,wants to throw himself into the river ;but a young girl does it at the very moment he is about to act.He saves her and a “guardian angel” welcomes him ,in the shape of a tramp ,played by the always wonderful Michel Simon.Nothing magic,nothing religious ,like in Capra’s beloved work.Simply the two young people decides to live under the stars ,like their mate .The chick (Meg Lemonnier)is a wealthy banker’s daughter and the boy (Jean ¨-Pierre Aumont) a poor artist ,but he is handsome whereas all the men the rich dad wanted his heir to marry were graybeards.Read More »

  • Douglas Heyes – The French Atlantic Affair (1979)

    1971-1980Douglas HeyesDramaTVUSA

    Quote:
    When the SS Festivale sets sail from New York to France, its 3,000 passengers include Pulitzer Prize-winning author Harold Columbine and 146 members of the Church of the Cosmic Path, led by Father Craig Dunleavy, their charismatic messiah. Seizing control of the ship, Dunleavy demands $70 million in gold, intending to kill everyone onboard once it’s paid. Without knowing which passengers are cultists and warned that 12 will die for every hijacker harmed, Columbine and the captain search for a way to save 3,000 lives before Dunleavy makes good on his threat. Based on a novel by screenwriter Ernest Lehman, this mini-series was broadcast over three nights in November 1979. -LetterboxdRead More »

  • Marcel Carné – Drôle de drame AKA Bizarre, bizarre (1937)

    Marcel Carné1931-1940ComedyFrance

    Synopsis: “A French farce set in Victorian London where a botanist and his wife get into trouble when they pretend to go missing in order to hide from their sanctimonious cousin – an Anglican bishop who is leading a campaign against such writing.”
    – IMDbRead More »

  • Dan Wolman – Nana (1983)

    1981-1990Dan WolmanEroticaExploitationItaly

    Synopsis:
    In Zola’s Paris, an ingenue arrives at a tony bordello: she’s Nana, guileless, but quickly learning to use her erotic innocence to get what she wants. She’s an actress for a soft-core filmmaker and soon is the most popular courtesan in Paris, parlaying this into a house, bought for her by a wealthy banker. She tosses him and takes up with her neighbor, a count of impeccable rectitude, and with the count’s impressionable son. The count is soon fetching sticks like a dog and mortgaging his lands to satisfy her whims. She bankrupts him, arranges the debauching of his wife, and seduces his son on his wedding day. What else can she accomplish before she leaves Paris airborne?Read More »

  • Emmanuel Laurent – Deux de la Vague AKA Two in the Wave (2010)

    Arthouse2001-2010DocumentaryEmmanuel LaurentFrance

    AMG: The story of how a friendship between two of Europe’s most important filmmakers turned into a rivalry is recounted in this documentary. François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard first met in 1949; in many ways they were very different people — Godard came from a wealthy and supportive family, while Truffaut had troubles with both school and the law during a hardscrabble youth — but they were both passionate devotees of the cinema, and became star writers at the pioneering film journal Cahiers du Cinéma. Ten years later, Truffaut and Godard were the most visible figures in the New Wave of French cinema, having enjoyed international success with The 400 Blows and Breathless. Read More »

  • Marcel Carné – Hôtel du Nord (1938)

    1931-1940DramaFilm NoirFranceMarcel Carné

    Quote:
    L`Hôtel du Nord is an award-winning novel of the first Prix du Roman Populist and is a loose collection of sentimental tales about simple people residing in a hotel. The novel begins with Monsieur and Madame Lecouvreur buying and transforming a rundown hotel. The film begins with the hotel already up and running and gives no real mention of how the hotel came about. So too, the novel ends with the Lecouvreur`s reluctantly selling the hotel to a large company that plans to construct an office building on the site and the tenants must unhappily leave and separate. The film`s ending is entirely modified and not only is the hotel not being demolished, but the film ends with the sense that this place and the people there are left standing in time untouched by the outside world. So too, the film focuses on criminals, prostitutes, and vagabonds, and develops the novel`s sentimental, rather than political, themes.Read More »

Back to top button