Paul Crauchet

A beleaguered housewife watches her dreams come true when her obnoxious husband dies, in actress-turned-director Isabelle Mergault's romantic comedy The Merry Widow (AKA Enfin veuve). For years, Anne-Marie Gratigny (Michele Laroque) has buckled beneath the weight of her condescending husband, Gilbert's (Wladimir Yordanoff) constant oppressiveness. An unrelenting boor, he belittles her, chides her, and torments her - until the day that he perishes in an automobile accident. Anne-Marie, of course, is thrilled by this turn of events. Among other things, it will give her the freedom to abscond with her extramarital lover, Leo (Jacques Gamblin), a builder of boats who is preparing to head off to China on business and to take Anne-Marie along. Unfortunately for Anne-Marie, these plans are dashed when her unwittingly intrusive family moves in to "console" her and upsets her relationship with Leo. More problematically, Anne-Marie finds that she can never quite bring herself to the point of confessing her true feelings about any of the tumultuous events that have happened. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

As part of an intergalactic coalition, a well-meaning space alien volunteers to bring a message of self-actualization and harmony with nature to the one planet rejected by all her peers as incorrigible--Earth. This family-oriented French sci-fi comedy chronicles her adventures on the chaotic planet. Mila is 150 years old and has five children; encoded in her brain are two telepathic programs designed to restructure the thinking of destructive humans. The first is a fairly mild program designed to inspire the humans to rethink their world and begin asking some difficult questions. The other is far stronger and rapidly indoctrinates subjects with lofty utopian ideals and makes them deeply aware of themselves. Mila lands in Paris and is unnoticed but for the sudden, inexplicable power surges and outages that occur whenever she sends a telepathic message to her alien cohorts. Instead of eating, Mila draws energy from holding newborn babies. It is while holding an orphan infant in an obstetrics ward that her Earthly troubles begin. Feeling deeply for the baby's plight, she confronts the ward's head doctor and when logic fails, looses her programs upon him. Instantly the unsympathetic brute sees the light and begins helping her save the babe from wicked welfare workers. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Mathilde (Dominique Blanc) has had a number of children, but is still an attractive woman. One day her husband simply picks up and leaves without any explanation whatever. At about the same time, she is involved at an accident at her workplace which makes her strongly aware of the passage of time. Can she once more know the love of a man? She has enough suitors: Charlie, though dull, has been in love with her since she could remember; Jacques is the father of one of her children; Mano has moved to the north of France from Spain, and wants to refurbish her house for her. Without rushing, she carefully considers each man (and her absent husband) in the context of her life, what she wants from it, and what is possible. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This 1990 French film presents idyllic episodes from the childhood of novelist and filmmaker Marcel Pagnol (1895-1974). Together, the episodes present a portrait of an ordinary family with an extraordinary ability to love. Set in Provencal in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the film first introduces members of the family, including Marcel (Julien Ciamaca). When he is still a preschooler, his father Joseph, a teacher, takes him to classes to watch over him. Marcel, however, learns along with the other children and starts to read out loud in class. Astonished, Joseph (Philippe Caubère) writes a sentence on the blackboard and asks, "What does that say?" Marcel, reading the words, says, "The father is proud of his little boy." This little scene establishes the tone and meaning of the film. Flashing ahead seven years, the camera then follows the Pagnols after they leave Marseilles for a summer vacation in the Provencal countryside, there to bask in the simplicity of rural life. From then on, it is not what happens to the family that engages audiences; it is how it happens -- with a quiet exuberance and joie de vivre. Besides Marcel and his father, the vacationers include his mother, Augustine (Nathalie Roussel), a beautiful and kindly homemaker; Marcel's little brother Paul (Victorien Delamare); and his Uncle Jules (Didier Pain) and Aunt Rose (Thérèse Liotard). After they arrive at their cottage, 11-year-old Marcel wastes no time wading into the greenery in search of adventure. What he finds is another adventuresome boy, Lili de Bellons (Joris Molinas), a native of the region. They become friends and fellow explorers, capturing cicadas, climbing rocks, and even invading an eagle's cave. Sometimes they just have fun shouting to hear an echo boomeranging back. At meal times -- often outdoors -- fresh fruit and good-natured repartee satisfy appetites. For spectator sport, the diners listen to the occasional religious arguments between Uncle Jules, a God-fearing Catholic, and Joseph, a God-doubting agnostic. Augustine and Aunt Rose avoid the polemics, for they have more important matters on their minds: keeping house, watching children, and planning the next day's menu. And then the film takes a turn toward real drama. Uncle Jules, full of tales about his prowess as a hunter, persuades Joseph, full of ignorance about guns and hunting, to go on a bird hunt. Woe is Papa, Marcel thinks. When the day of the great hunt arrives, Marcel secretly follows Joseph and Uncle Jules into the woods, setting the stage for the film's climactic moment. ~ Mike Cummings, All Movie Guide

Axel Corti directed this historical drama starring Timothy Dalton as King Vittorio Amadeo, a 17th-century Italian monarch who becomes obsessed with the wife of one of his courtiers (Valeria Golino). ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

This mystery is taken from the novel by best-selling author Guy des Cars. While on a voyage with his philandering wife (Assumpta Serna), Jacques (Xavier Deluc), in spite of the fact that he is blind, deaf, and mute, is accused of murdering an oily lounge singer. Deliot (Jean Carmet) is the defense attorney who tries to find the killer and defend Jacques, who inexplicably admits to a murder he did not commit. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

In cold-blooded, vigilante style, a mother exacts revenge for the deaths of her daughter and her daughter's lover in this run-of-the-mill thriller by Alain Bonnot. Jeanne Dufour (Annie Girardot) knows her daughter lives on the wrong side of the law, but when the daughter takes part in a bank robbery and is mercilessly shot down by her supposed cohorts -- who also kill her boyfriend -- the mother vows to avenge her death. Her resolve starts her off on a series of violent and calculated murders executed with no concern for possible consequences -- a dangerous attitude to assume. Within a tightly-paced story, Jeanne is remote in action and emotion, making it difficult to care about what she is doing, or why. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

When a nurse who is already morose has a patient die under her care, she is so overwhelmed by this death that she starts out on a search for the patient's relatives and friends. What she does find in the end, is a group of petty thieves and misfits who live in the area of the city's docks and had worked out a robbery with the patient who died in the hospital. The nurse senses that the down-and-out group shares her forlorn, depressed outlook, and she sympathizes with them to such an extent that she becomes willing to defend them at any cost -- an attitude that could be dangerous to her health. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Roland Fériaud (Lino Ventura), on returning from a seaside vacation, discovers a corpse in a room adjoining his. He is abducted by a mysterious group who take him to a clinic of some kind, where he is interrogated. He is shown a small suitcase he has never seen before, and he tries in vain to understand what it is his captors want. Director Jacques Deray specialized in this kind of thriller, which is a typical specimen of the genre. At this time Lino Ventura was at the peak of his stardom, playing silent, stoical heros after the manner of Jean Gabin. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

A torrent of dreams and memories are set off in the mind of Felicite (Christine Pascal) by a powerful flare-up of jealousy. She is at the movie theater with her current boyfriend when he sees and greets an old friend. When he invites the girl to join them for drinks afterwards, Felcite runs back to her home, where she has an evening of heavy drinking, memories, erotic fantasies and nightmares. Many sexual situations, as well as traumatic events from her past, arise in her mind and are acted out on the screen. Eventually, her boyfriend returns to their home and she grills him for details of his lovemaking that night. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Bourgeois family man Michel Bouquet inadvertently come into the possession of mobster information. The bad guys find out, and take over Bouquet's house, holding his family hostage. Bouquet is absent when this happens, but the crooks threaten to kill his loved ones if he doesn't come home and give up his own life post-haste. While Beyond Fear is obviously inspired by The Desperate Hours, it also owes a great deal to the 1939 B picture Persons in Hiding. The film was originally released in France as Au-Dela De la Peur. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, a newly married groom finds himself overwhelmed by business expenses and becomes a crook. The trouble really begins when he falls in love with his victims. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Story of a Love Story may well be the least-known of John Frankenheimer's films. Filmed in France, the story concerns highly imaginative author Alan Bates. Though happily married, Bates enters into an affair with Dominique Sanda. Somehow, the whole experience seems unreal. Could Sanda be merely a character in one of Bates' novels, conjured up out of boredom? We won't reveal the answer here; let us just offer our congratulations to Frankenheimer for so stylishly breaking away from his standard "message" mode (as exemplified in The Manchurian Candidate and Seven Days in May). Story of a Love Story was originally released as Impossible Object. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide