Jacques Charon Movies
- 1970
Eric (Robert Dhery) is the beleaguered husband of a harridan wife who works as a writer of advertising slogans. When he develops an uncanny ability to select the winner of the daily horse races, local gamblers take a sudden interest. Eric is cornered by the gamblers who find it hard to believe he does not use his unusual talent to place bets for himself. He eventually wins over the hard bitten thugs with good humor in this comedy taken from the play by John Cecil Holm and George Abbott. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Dhéry, Colette Brosset, (more)
- 1968
Taken from the 1907 comedy play by Georges Feydeau, A Flea In Her Ear is a comedic sex romp about a wife suspicious of her husband's activities away from home. Gabrielle (Rosemary Harris) is convinced her attorney husband Victor (Rex Harrison) is seeing another woman because of his inattention to her amorous needs. Gabrielle sets up a meeting with her husband at a bordello-hotel, and he is completely unaware that the woman he is going to meet will be his own wife. She soon discovers just who is being unfaithful to their wives after meeting a number of lovers and both faithful and unfaithful husbands. Louis Jourdan and Rachel Roberts also star in this light situation comedy containing turn-of the-century-sensibilities that appear somewhat dated in 1968. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rosemary Harris, Louis Jourdan, (more)
- 1965
This episodic film is for those who have ever wondered about the lives of the people who buy beds in a furniture store. Each story presents a vignette from the life of a customer. One is a hotel proprietor who generously allows two young men to stay in his room. He has no idea that one of those men is messing around with his daughter. In another chapter a psychiatrist burns with unfulfilled passion because his wife will not make love to him. Other sketches follow. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sylva Koscina, France Anglade, (more)
- 1963
Author Irwin Shaw wrote the screenplay for this adaptation of two of his short stories set in Paris. Christina James (Jean Seberg) is a footloose American girl living in the City of Lights. She becomes involved with Guy (Philippe Forquet), who tells her that he's a student at the University studying engineering, but when they plan a rendezvous at a cheap hotel, he confesses to her that he's really only 16 years old. Christina breaks it off with him and goes through a series of brief and unsatisfying affairs with a variety of men until she meets Walter Beddoes (Stanley Baker), a journalist with an unfortunate appetite for alcohol. Despite the fact his work often forces him to travel abroad on a moment's notice, Christina is deeply in love with Walter, and when her father (Addison James) tries to persuade her to come back to the United States, she refuses, preferring to stay with Walter. In time, Christina realizes that Walter is away from her more often than he's with her, and when she meets John Haislip (James Leo Herlihy), an American doctor vacationing in France, she has to decide if her passion for Walter is more important than her feelings for John, who wants her to come to his home in San Francisco, where he'll always be there for her. In the French Style offered an appropriate role for actress Jean Seberg, who was born in Iowa but found most of her best film roles after she moved to France. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean Seberg, Stanley Baker, (more)
Jean-Paul Belmondo romps his way through the role of 18th century French bandit chief Cartouche. At first robbing from everyone in sight (he has to -- he's head man of a Parisian crime syndicate) Cartouche is rechanneled into becoming a Gallic Robin Hood by beauteous gypsy Venus (Claudia Cardinale). In Highwayman fashion, Venus eventually sacrifices her own life to save Cartouche from harm. He vows to continue his activities to avenge her death, but still manages to have a riproaring good time doing so. Hilarious without being condescending, Cartouche was reissued under the completely inappropriate title Swords of Blood. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean-Paul Belmondo, Claudia Cardinale, (more)
- 1962
This routine sex comedy by director Michel Boisrond stars Jean Poiret as Bernard, a young, up-and-coming publisher who has inexplicably fallen in love with Sophie (Dany Saval) a woman working with a 25-watt bulb, when it is turned on at all. Sophie is as well-grounded as daisy fluff and just as serious, yet Bernard goes after her with all the determination of a man blinded by love. After a wild and crazy courtship, the couple marry, but Sophie's personality does not change and she gets him into trouble -- to the point where he almost loses his job. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Serrault, Dany Saval, (more)
- 1960
This French social comedy makes fun of the upper crust. It is based on a Moliere play and is the first appearance of the entire Comedie Francaise troupe. Usually, the troupe only allowed one member at a time to appear in a film. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1958
The classic 17th century Moliere comedy Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme is given respectful treatment in this 1958 filmization. Jean Meyer stars as the vulgar nouveau-riche protagonist, whose attempts to buy his way into the uppermost rungs of society provide plenty of knowing chuckles. The film was produced by the Comedie Francaise, then as now the world's foremost purveyors of Moliere's best works. Star-director Jean Meyer does little to open up the play cinematic, filming the piece exactly as written, right down to "stage waits" for laughs. Would that someone had filmed the like-vintage American staging of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, starring that incomparable Broadway clown Bobby Clark. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Louis Seigner, Jean Meyer, (more)
- 1951
Autant-Lara's L'Auberge Rouge (The Red Inn) is black comedy at its very blackest. The scene is a rustic little inn in a remote rural area of France. The inn's proprietors Pierre (Carette) and Marie (Francoise Rosay) industriously support themselves by murdering the various stagecoach passengers who stop over at the inn, and then keep their valuables for themselves. As the story gets under way, a coach full of delightfully eccentric types pulls into the inn's courtyard, ripe for plucking. One of the passengers is a Monk (Fernandel), who learns of the innkeeper's homicidal schemes but is bound by the rules of the Confessional to reveal this information to no one. How can the monk secure the safety of his fellow passengers without betraying his vows? His solution--and the wickedly ironic coda that follows--will linger in the memory long after the final reel of L'Auberge Rouge tumbles over the spools. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fernandel, Françoise Rosay, (more)
- 1947
In this drama, set after the Napoleonic Wars, the aristocratic Chabert comes back to his palatial home to find that his wife has remarried. She had given Chabert, whom she never really loved, up for dead. Her new husband, who is also richer, makes her much happier. To protect her new life, the wife calls Chabert an imposter and has him committed to an asylum. He sneaks out and wanders the streets where he meets and becomes friends with the impoverished street folk. By the time his true identity is revealed it is too late. Chabert has decided to renounce his aristocracy and opts to live with the poor. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Raimu, Marie Bell, (more)
