Jacques Ciron Movies

Sweet Revenge is a made-for-television comedy about a female lawyer (Carrie Fisher) who is ordered to pay alimony to her ex-husband. She hires an actress (Rosanna Arquette) to marry him, in hopes that she will be able to stop paying alimony. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi

Following the disastrous Pirates (1986), director Roman Polanski got back on creative track with this finely-wrought thriller that, while failing to impress at the box office, was nevertheless his most critically well-received film of the decade. Harrison Ford stars as Richard Walker, an American doctor who has come to Paris, where he's scheduled to deliver a paper to a medical conference. Richard has brought along his wife Sondra (Betty Buckley), because Paris was the site of their honeymoon 20 years earlier. Sondra picks up the wrong suitcase at the airport, which leads to her kidnapping and an ever-more complicated quest that takes Richard into the seedy and dangerous underworld of European drug smuggling and terrorist arms sales. Along the way, he is rebuffed by skeptical officials at the American Embassy and meets Michelle (Emmanuelle Seigner), a sexy courier who agrees to help him in exchange for the money she's owed for trafficking in narcotics. Playing cleverly on American fears about Europe's Byzantine politics and "decadent" society, Frantic received, from many observers, perhaps the greatest compliment possible for a thriller, comparison to the work of Alfred Hitchcock. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

This run-of-the-mill police comedy drama focuses on two policemen, René (Philippe Noiret), a somewhat grubby plainclothes policeman who has lived on bribes and minor racketeering for the last 20 years, and his new partner François (Thierry Lhermitte), especially honest and certainly naive. René is too accustomed to the good life with his lover, a former prostitute, and too much addicted to the racetrack to give it all up because of a straight-arrow partner. And so he fixes François up with the gorgeous Natasha (Grace de Capitani), herself a high-class prostitute whose charms leave the young cop besotted and whose expensive tastes leave him broke. Driven by love above all other concerns, François not only joins René in his schemes, he eventually gets an idea for swiping enough money to retire them both for life. Both Noiret and Lhermitte give top-notch performances that help to compensate for the otherwise predictable script. Ripoux was awarded 1984 Cesars for "Best Film" and "Best Director." ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

This romantic tragedy concerns the Archduke Rudolf (Omar Sharif) and his mistress, the Baroness Maria Vetsera (Catherine Deneuve), and their untimely demise at Mayerling, the sight of the Austrian royal family's hunting lodge. Rudolf verbally spars with his father Emperor Franz-Josef (James Mason) about wanting to implement progressive policies for his country. Ava Gardner plays his mother Empress Elizabeth. Rudolf also contends with the fallout from a loveless marriage with Princess Stephanie (Andrea Parisy). Respectful of the centuries-old Hapsburg family rule over Austria, Rudolf soon feels he is a man born at the wrong time in a country that will not realize the need for social reform. The Prince of Wales (James Robertson-Justice), later to become Britain's King Edward VII, provides the only comic relief with his dialogue. The deaths remain a mystery, but director Terence Young suggests the two lovers made a suicide pact when they decided they could not live in a world without love where the prospects for peace were dubious at best. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

Beautifully photographed, this comedy drama from Jean Renoir chronicles the revival of Paris' most notorious dance as it tells the story of a theater producer who turns a humble washerwoman into a star at the Moulin Rouge. The film is also title Only the French Can. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi