Simone Paris Movies

A young man and woman go on a cruise to do a photo essay on a ship and it's many ports of call. He engages in an affair with a passenger while the woman faithfully tries to call her boyfriend when they are on land. The thin plot barely disguises the colorful travelogue and shameless plug for the cruise ship company that financed the film. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

The ultimate "date" movie of the mid-1960s, director Claude Lelouch's A Man and a Woman (Un Homme et Une Femme) stars Jean-Louis Trintignant and Anouk Aimee in the title roles. The twosome meet at the boarding school where their children are enrolled. Aimee, an actress, misses her train home, and Trintignant, a professional race car driver, offers her a ride. It is the first of several friendly encounters which eventually blossom into love. Both want to commit to each other, but neither can shake the Past. The now-famous climactic scene in a train station was not scripted at the time of shooting, thus Aimee was unaware that director Lelouch had decided upon a tearful reunion between her and Trintignant. This explains the look of utter surprise on the actress' face. Much has been written about the possible motivation behind Lelouch's decision to film some scenes in color, others in black-and-white. None of the more ardent auterists truly want to hear the director's explanation: he'd run short of money halfway through production, and black-and-white film stock was infinitely cheaper. The winner of two Oscars (one for Best Foreign Film), A Man and A Woman also scored on the "top ten" with its memorable theme music by Francis Lai. A sequel, A Man and a Woman: 20 Years Later appeared....twenty years later. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this melodrama, a widow falls in love with a much younger man who is only interested in her money. When her fortune is gone, her lover gets ready to leave. But then he meets the widow's 19-year-old daughter as she returns from a sanitarium. He is determined to seduce the young woman, but she is not interested. Later the young cad teams up with smugglers to earn some fast cash. Once again he endeavors to force himself on the hapless girl. This time the mother walks in. But strangely, she accuses the girl of wrongdoing, not the lover. The girl leaves, but the cad professes his love and proposes. Meanwhile, the smugglers find the police are hot on their trail and decide to frame the young man. He gets wind of this and goes to the cops first resulting in the gang's kidnapping of the girl. He tries to rescue her, but is killed in the ensuing scuffle. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this French melodrama, a kind-hearted social worker helps a hapless waif by taking her into her home. She gets the girl a job working for her fiance, a doctor. The two fall in love. The patient social worker eventually confronts the two. Her anger is awesome. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Both a tribute to classic American gangster films and the source of inspiration for French New Wave filmmakers, Bob le Flambeur is the first in a series of stylish noirs that Jean-Pierre Melville started in the mid-'50s. Co-scripted by the popular crime writer Auguste Le Breton (Rififi), this is a story of ex-bank robber and compulsive gambler Bob (Roger Duchesne), who plans a heist at the Deauville casino. As in many films of that genre, he assembles a team of old friends and new acquaintances to do the job and is determined to perform it despite all the odds that continue to pile up before him. The overall tone is admirably lighthearted, however, and despite many stylistic and thematic references to American caper movies, the whole enterprise remains genuinely French. "This is a kind of film that we want to make!" exclaimed the young and rebellious François Truffaut back in 1955. Jean-Luc Godard, in his turn, acknowledged Melville's influence, giving him an extended cameo in Breathless. ~ Yuri German, Rovi