Paul Meurisse Movies

The plotline of Le Gitan concerns a devil-may-care "good badman" with gypsy blood flowing through his veins. Robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, our hero confounds the authorities in contemporary France. The film makes implications that the attitudes of French society towards the gypsies are to blame for his transformation into a criminal, though the director's sympathies clearly lie with the main character. Alain Delon plays the title role, while Annie Girardot plays a woman who helps him to escape the authorities. Officially a 1975 release, Gypsy may well have been completed several years earlier. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When an American tourist is murdered in the south of France, the police must investigate. In this movie, the police inspector re-creates the girl's journeys through France until the murder is solved. Suspicions are narrowed down to four possible perpetrators early on, and flashbacks illuminate the roles each one played in the girl's vacation. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Alfred (Michel Serrault) doesn't work. He lets his wife do that. Instead, he plays the horses, and wanders about, hitchhiking. His sly laziness serves him in good stead when he is kidnapped by people he thought were giving him a ride. He wakes from unconsciousness in a coffin in Istanbul, pockets full of counterfeit cash. Another gang, not the one that kidnapped him, accosts him and tries to find out what kind of smuggling scheme would send him in the coffin. The original gang then makes its presence known, and Alfred tries with some skill to play one against the other in this gangster farce. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this war drama set during the French Resistance of WW II, a courageous fighter escapes Gestapo headquarters and returns to Marseille. There he and his gang capture a traitor and throttle him. They then try to rescue a Resistance fighter in Lyons. As they do so, the hero is again captured and his partner killed. Again the hero escapes just before he is executed. He then finds that a female partner has been captured. To avoid having her daughter forced to work in a Nazi brothel, the woman has informed upon the others. She is then released and subsequently killed by another Resistance fighter for revenge. The screenplay is based on Joseph Kessel's novel and became filmmaker Jean Pierre Melville's magnum opus. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A petty crook teams up with a cop, who has been fired for incompetence, to fleece a wealthy businessman in this crime comedy. When the duo convinces the man that old Russian bonds will be honored by the Soviet Union, they are taken in by a wealthy widow who wants in on the scheme. Paul Meurisse and Jean Lefebvre co-star as the unlikely partners in crime, with comedy relief also handled by the befuddled Bernard Blier. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Walter Slezak plays a guide in a Vienna wax museum in this fantasy. When the tourists get to the figure of Chancellor Metternich, they are magically transported back in time to the Viennese Congress of 1814. The aristocrats are much more interested in parties and social affairs than the affairs of state, leading to a series of amorous escapades. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Caroline (Dany Saval) is a young woman who turns her attention to older men in this romantic situation comedy. She has hopes of finding a worldly, mature man to marry, but always seems to pick the wrong men. She is wooed by a millionaire, a pushy salesman, and a pompous physician before learning all three are already married. Caroline decides to find a young man her own age after her failed attempts for happiness with the middle-aged lotharios. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Ruthless and for some viewers, also vulgar and unpleasant, this uneven comedy by Marcel Carne has a madhouse of characters of dubious morals going through equally questionable antics. Their objectives are primarily self-serving. A former gangster (Paul Meurisse) is interested only in keeping birds -- and his take from his last heist to help him go straight. In the same house is Lucie (Dany Saval) who is supporting her Italian lover by sleeping with the butcher. Meanwhile, the butcher's wife has her own lover -- his assistant. Then there is the female custodian who is helping out an old biddy only with the intentions of getting her hands on the woman's rumored stash of cash. A few other seamy characters wander in and out of cheap bars and brothels as the lives of all these people suddenly come together when the police show up to arrest the ex-gangster. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A flamboyant, scatterbrained divorced woman allows a pompous composer to use her home to finish his unfinished symphony. He becomes involved in a accidental murder in this dark comedy of errors. Maria Schell stars as the pleasure seeking woman whose heartstrings are played by Paul Meurisse as the egocentric, self proclaimed musical genius. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

In this comedic spy yarn, star Paul Meurisse scores with his witty, sophisticated interpretation of his character Dromard, a French secret agent distinguished by his use of a black monocle. In this adventure, several agents from many Western nations and Russia as well are all looking for some documents hidden by the Germans during World War II. Along with the documents is a supposed buried treasure, but it is a toss-up as to what matters the most -- the treasure, or getting rid of incriminating material in the documents themselves. The agents have caught on to the fact that one German most likely knows where the documents are hidden, and everyone goes after him. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Director Georges Lautner and screenwriter Jacques Robert worked on a series of "Monocle" films together, starting with this tongue-in-cheek espionage thriller. Paul Meurisse launched his career with this film, as Dromard, the French secret agent with the black monocle. In this story, a somewhat wacko nobleman is anxiously sitting out the expected arrival of the former leader of the Nazi youth corps. The word gets out to the international spy ring, and soon German and Russian agents are snooping around, hoping to be there when the man arrives. But in the end, they might as well be waiting for Godot. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Love and the Frenchwoman (La Francaise et L'Amour) concentrates on the nature of love by illustrating seven separate aspects of the emotion. In "Childhood," 9-year old Pierre-Jean Vaillard suffers a traumatic experience when he takes his parents' "cabbage patch" theory of conception too literally. In "Adolescence," a little girl (Annie Sinigalla) constructs an elaborate fantasy world on the occasion of her first kiss. "Virginity" is a study in frustration, as betrothed couple Valerie Lagrange and Pierre Michel agonizingly await their wedding-night consummation of their ardor. "Marriage" finds a union ending almost before it begins as a pair of newlyweds (Marie-Jose Nat and Claude Rich) bicker all the way to their honeymoon rendezvous. "Adultery" allows husband Paul Meurisse the opportunity to calmly provide an object lesson to his wife's lover Jean-Paul Belmondo. In "Divorce", a couple (Annie Girardot and Francois Pierer) find that it's impossible to have a "civilized" breakup. And in "A Woman Alone," bigamist Robert Lamoreaux meets his Waterloo in the forms of Martine Carol and Sylvia Montfort. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This suspensful drama finds ten members of the underground uniting fifteen years after the end of World War II. Nine men and a woman come together to expose a traitor among them. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide