Alain Belmondo Movies

Set in French Colonial Africa, Chocolat is told from the viewpoint of 8-year-old Cecile Ducasse. With no other frame of reference, the innocent Ducasse accepts the subjugation of the black natives by the white colonists as the natural order of things. The girl grows gradually aware of the social iniquities about her, but only in retrospect (the film is related in flashback, narrated by the grown-up heroine) does she fully realize just how cruel and wrong-headed the entire colonial system had been. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This French/Canadian "caper" comedy stars Jean-Paul Belmondo as an oh-so-clever bank robber. Disguised as a clown, Belmondo robs a major Montreal bank, taking Guy Marchand and Kim Cattrall as a hostages. We soon learn that both Marchand and Cattral are actually Belmondo's accomplices in his precisely planned holdup. The trick now is for the threesome to get out of Montreal--a feat comparable to Hannibal crossing the Alps. Chock full of surprising plot twists, Hold-Up is based on a novel by Jay Cronley, which also served as the inspiration for the 1990 Bill Murray vehicle Quick Change. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Stephane (Jean-Paul Belmondo) has a predilection for being unfaithful, and when he is caught by his wife with the charming Julie (Sophie Marceau) in his bed, he passes Julie off as his daughter by a former marriage -- someone he had forgotten to mention before. Julie, of course, is not thrilled with the situation, nor is Stephane's wife -- and so the adventure begins in this ribald comedy. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

The French/German Ace of Aces stars Jean-Paul Belmondo as a dauntless World War One flyboy. Nearly 20 years after cessation of hostilities, Belmondo attends the 1936 Berlin Olympics as manager of the French boxing team. Through a series of plot twists too incredible to relate, Our Hero finds himself shepherding a group of Jewish refugees to safety. Alas, his sense of direction isn't so hot, and the refugees end up at Hitler's mountain retreat! Originally titled L'As De As, Ace of Aces is a black comedy in the Mel Brooks tradition. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In France, the slang-word for "bounty hunter" is "alpagueur." When the police are working on cases where they do not want their presence officially known, they arrange for private individuals who specialize in this work to perform certain services, such as setting up major arrests. In this film, L'Alpageur is Jean-Paul Belmondo, who does his work with a considerable sense of humor, great charm, and in as "clean" a way as possible. First, he busts a drug-trafficking ring operating out of Rotterdam by observing that a certain "pregnant" woman moves in an unusual fashion. Her "baby" turns out to be a large, specially shaped package of heroin. The drug kingpins stung by his operation seek to find the man who thwarted them, but because L'Alpageur is known only to a few in the police department, the drug barons' corrupt police friends cannot determine who he is. Later, he busts the leaders of a prostitution ring. While they were all gathered in one room, he fed nitrous oxide into that space, and they all fell unconscious following a few giddy, laugh-filled moments. This made it possible for him to arrest them without their ever seeing him. His most important case, however, is his search for "The Hawk," a bank-robber who uses local juvenile delinquents in each town to help him set up his thefts. After each robbery, he kills his helpers. One of them, however, has survived and has been put in jail. L'Alpageur is given a false identity and is put into jail alongside the youth. His job is to help the lad escape, and find the elusive, murderous bank robber. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This film by French director Alain Resnais (Last Year in Marienbad) is loosely based on a true story from the 1930s about financier, con-man and swindler Stavisky who was arrested in 1934 for selling phony stock but was never brought to trial. While in jail, he continued to engage in doubtful monetary transactions. As the rumors that he was being protected by high-ranking members of the government of the French Third Republic were undoubtedly true, the scandal had a profoundly unsettling effect on the French nation, already suffering from poor government handling of the Depression, and this incident nearly brought down both the government and the Republic. Stavisky's death in prison (an apparent suicide) triggered widespread unrest and rioting. In the movie, when Stavisky (Jean-Paul Belmondo) goes to jail as a young con-man, his embarrassed father commits suicide. Ruining countless lives in his stellar career as a big-money swindler, including that of his nobleman friend Raoul (Charles Boyer), Stavisky is shown to be a pawn in a still bigger swindle, one which will destroy the Left and open the way to fascism. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide