Bruno Balp Movies

This story about a wounded American gangster seeking refuge in the country villa of a blind, sophisticated, and aging actor has an uneven script that alternates sharp dialogue with slow segments. The plot thickens when the actor's nephew arrives with his new love interest, and she is quite taken with the gangster. Jealous of his brutish rival, the young nephew plans to get back at the American in any way he can. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

A doctor gains a new perspective on her life and career when she faces a life-threatening illness in this drama. Francoise (Annie Girardot) is a French physician with a very busy schedule. While she's well respected by her patients and colleagues, she has precious little time to spend with her husband Gerard (Francois Perier), her pregnant teenage daughter Elisabeth (Isabelle Huppert), or her sullen son Julien (William Coryn). She somehow manages to find time for her lover Daniel (Jean-Pierre Cassel), but Francoise's life is already starting to fray at the edges when she receives the upsetting news that she has cancer. Francoise, however, learns to put on a brave face and faces her disease and its difficult treatment with optimism and a fierce resolve. Annie Giradot's performance in Docteur Francoise Gailland earned her a Cesar (the French Academy Award). ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Pierre (Pierre Richard) is a rumpled-looking fellow, consistently overlooked by the nubile girls at the college where he teaches mathematics. However, when he wins the affection of a movie star (Jane Birkin), he wins more attention than he bargained on: his stuffy father disapproves of the affair, the press is entranced, and the college girls can't keep away from him. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Between 1951 and 1972 Bernard Borderie directed many "B"-grade films, and this low-budget, rapidly made comedy is one of them. Fernandel stars as Migonnet, a philosophy instructor who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He unintentionally ends up with the loot from a high-end robbery when the escaping thief needs somewhere to dump the evidence. The problem is that his newfound windfall is no secret from the underworld, and before he knows it, Migonnet is being chased by an assortment of greedy criminal elements. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Originally released in France under the title Le Silence est D'Or, Man About Town is set in the Paris of the early 1900s. Maurice Chevalier plays a director of silent films (whose working conditions are recreated with remarkable accuracy), while Marcelle Derien is an actress whom Chevalier hopes to turn into a film star. She falls in love with her younger leading man (Francois Perier), and Chevalier, after putting up a gentle struggle, bows to the inevitability of young romance. The first postwar US/France coproduction, Man About Town won several international prizes. Unfortunately, its American version was hampered by a misguided translation device: Rather than dub the actors' voices or utilize subtitles, the American distributor chose to have Maurice Chevalier narrate the film in English and comment upon its action. The resultant effect took the audience "out" of the picture when it should have been involved with the plot, and this clumsy translation technique was never used again. The best moment in the Americanized Man About Town was Chevalier's opening musical number, directed not by Le Silence Est D'Or's Rene Clair but by RKO film editor Robert Pirosh--who also trimmed the film by 17 minutes for U.S. audiences. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi