Marc Dudicourt Movies

In this French slapstick comedy, a boozy boxer, is again beaten to a pulp in the ring and decides to head for the Mediterranean resort of Norbonne where his brother owns a pizza wagon. En route he teams up with an aspiring con man, who has also been beaten up. As they travel southward, they meet many odd characters and have a variety of madcap adventures. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Following the disastrous Pirates (1986), director Roman Polanski got back on creative track with this finely-wrought thriller that, while failing to impress at the box office, was nevertheless his most critically well-received film of the decade. Harrison Ford stars as Richard Walker, an American doctor who has come to Paris, where he's scheduled to deliver a paper to a medical conference. Richard has brought along his wife Sondra (Betty Buckley), because Paris was the site of their honeymoon 20 years earlier. Sondra picks up the wrong suitcase at the airport, which leads to her kidnapping and an ever-more complicated quest that takes Richard into the seedy and dangerous underworld of European drug smuggling and terrorist arms sales. Along the way, he is rebuffed by skeptical officials at the American Embassy and meets Michelle (Emmanuelle Seigner), a sexy courier who agrees to help him in exchange for the money she's owed for trafficking in narcotics. Playing cleverly on American fears about Europe's Byzantine politics and "decadent" society, Frantic received, from many observers, perhaps the greatest compliment possible for a thriller, comparison to the work of Alfred Hitchcock. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

Although the plot in this funny, well-acted romantic comedy is written by the numbers, the story entertains because of the talent of the two leads. Thierry Lhermitte plays Jacques Belin, a dashing television star who is on a bender after receiving an award for his courteous demeanor. Josiane Balasko portrays Frede, an ex-convict who runs into Jacques in a train station. Circumstances throw the two of them together for an evening immersed in alcohol, much to Jacques' later regret. He does not remember what happened the night before when he wakes up with a headache the size of Lyons, but Frede has no such problem, and that only means trouble. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

This sequel to Dear Detective suffers from the same trouble as most sequels in that it does not live up to the original film. Police director Lise Tanquerelle (Annie Girardot) marries Antoine Lemercier (Philippe Noiret), an expert in Greek history. While honeymooning in Greece, they are approached by Pochet (Francis Perrin), a young archaeologist who discloses his latest discovery to the couple. He has uncovered the buttocks of Venus Heroclitus. Agnes (Catherine Alric) is Pochet's disgruntled wife who allows the statue to be stolen by a Greek sailor. When the sailor is found dead, Antoine and Porchet are indicted for murder. The two escape in order to track down the real culprit in this crime comedy adventure. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

Paris was never so grim as in this French satire. Malisard and Prevot (Philippe Noiret and Pierre Richard) are a journalistic team. Their job is to ride around in a city full of burning buildings, thieves and bomb explosions looking for scoops and headline grabbers suitable for the very yellow journalistic slant their paper is known for. Things get out of hand and very hectic when they start covering the apparent disappearance of their own children. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

The French/Italian/British King of Hearts (Le Roi de Coeur) takes place during World War I, but it might as well have been the Vietnamese conflict so far as its youthful "core" audience was concerned. Overacting outrageously, Adolfo Celi plays British colonel Alexander MacBibenbrook, who orders mild-mannered Scotsman Pvt. Charles Plumpick (Alan Bates) to undertake a life-or-death mission in a tiny French village. While evacuating the town, the Germans have left behind a time bomb that will explode at midnight; Plumpick must defuse that bomb. Upon his arrival in town, Plumpick discovers that it is far from deserted. A group of inmates from the local insane asylum, left behind during the evacuation, have claimed the village for their own. Knocked unconscious, Plumpick awakens to learn that he has been crowned "King of Hearts" by the gentle lunatics. None of the inmates pay any heed to Plumpick's warnings about impending doom, and when he attempts to lead them out of town, they are terrified at the prospect and scurry back to the "safety" of the village. Plumpick is finally able to render the bomb useless, whereupon the grateful inmates decide to stage a three-year celebration. When Plumpick tries to leave, he is kidnapped by the loonies at the behest of beautiful inmate Coquelicot (Geneviève Bujold), who has fallen in love with him. Bound and gagged, Plumpick watches helplessly as the Germans and the British troops kill each other off in comic-opera fashion. Finally set free, Plumpick weighs the horrible insanity of war against the more benign brand of lunacy represented by the inmates. The final image -- of a nude Plumpick carrying a birdcage, knocking on the doors of the asylum, and demanding that he be "accepted" -- was reproduced for the print ads of King of Hearts, effectively giving away the ending. An essential "date" film of the 1970s, King of Hearts was often released to campus movie houses in tandem with a pair of cult-favorite short subjects, the animated Bambi Meets Godzilla and Lenny Bruce's Thank You Masked Man. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A Matter of Resistance is the English-language title of the frothy wartime comedy La Vie De Chateau. Set in occupied France, the film stars Catherine Deneuve as the young and beautiful bride of middle-aged and homely Philipe Noiret. Disappointed at Noiret's indifference concerning the Nazi invaders, Catherine is swept off her feet by handsome Resistance leader Henri Garcin. Throughout the rest of the film, it seems as though the underground operatives and the German officers are more interested in bedding the bewitched Ms. Deneuve than in winning the war. The music by Michel Legrand lends just the right airiness to this captivating farce. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi