Henri Cremieux Movies
- 1981
- R
In this tender and sentimental comedy, Ben (Victor Lanoux), a Parisian Jew, copes with the dramas in his everyday life against the background of his family's survival of the Holocaust. Things between him and his wife are not any too easy, and on top of it, he has to heed his father's concerns, even though he lives in Israel now. His grandfather, who lives in the south of France, is a very old man, but is still a romantic obsessed with women. These tensions come to the fore when the family gathers to celebrate the patriarch's 90th birthday. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Victor Lanoux, Jane Birkin, (more)
- 1980
Rien ne va plus, by director Jean-Michel Ribes, is a series of comedy sketches of disparate quality, on the social, cultural, and political foibles that make the French, French. Various settings and character types are given a once-over, including pseudo-intellectuals, punk bikers, right-wingers, and patrons of a low-end cafe. Some of the skits seem to revolve around a good idea, but when the script and dialogue have to deliver, the idea tends to deflate before being realized. Comics Jacques Villeret and Roland Blanche are among the actors featured here. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jacques Villeret, Eva Darlan, (more)
- 1978
The independently-minded daughter of lower-middle class French shopkeepers, Brigitte, one of three sisters, refused to marry the father of her child when she became pregnant. In this film, she reminisces about her family life beginning when she was about five years old, up to the present when she is in her early 20s. Of her two sisters, one has a nervous breakdown and the other one becomes something of a baby factory. Colorful anecdotes of her eventful life lend additional depth to her insights. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anne Caudry, Laurence Ligneres, (more)
- 1973
Art precedes life in this French comedy about a group of social security recipients who go on a crime spree when their checks are late. Not long after the film was made, social security recipients got together for a large protest demonstration. Stand-up comic Jacques Martin plays Chapulet who washed out of a career in the army, tried but failed to become a priest, and now hangs around his favorite church (which is failing, of course) trying to help out. After giving a fiery revolutionary speech to a group of elderly parishioners whose checks are late, they go out without him and pull off a heist. Aghast, he tries to smooth things over before the police haul them off to jail. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
Originally titled Peau D'Ane, Jacques Demy's Dos Cruces en Danger Pass is better known by its English-language title Donkey Skin. Based on a fairy tale by Charles Perrault (of Cinderella fame), the bizarre story concerns the king (Jean Marais) of a strange, enchanted land. Catherine Deneuve plays the dual role of the king's wife and daughter. When the wife dies, she makes the king promise that he'll never marry anyone less beautiful than she; thus, he is compelled to wed his own daughter! The fairy godmother (Delphine Seyrig) tries to save the girl from this incestuous fate by telling her to make impossible demands for her wedding gifts. One such demand is for the skin of a magic donkey which deposits valuable jewels in its compost heaps. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Catherine Deneuve, Jean Marais, (more)
- 1970
Marie (Marthe Keller) is the most beautiful girl in her small village. She enters a beauty contest in a nearby town and wins the top prize. Broderick (Bert Convey) is the young American businessman who falls in love with the newly crowned beauty queen. She agrees to marry him but states she cannot leave her village behind her. He buys the entire village and moves them all to a small island near Manhattan. Try as they may, the simple villagers cannot adjust to the turbulence of the big city with the Statue of Liberty always looming in the background. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marthe Keller, Bert Convy, (more)
- 1970
An artist grows hateful of commercial demands on his questionable talents when his friend and artist commits suicide. He puts the blame for his friend's death on an art critic and a shady art dealer. He is able to take out his frustrations on the pretentious critic at a party. When an elderly man moves into the boarding house, he brings a machine he invented that can make people realize their subconscious dreams. Hoodlums break in and steal the machine, telling the old man that the young artist is also involved in the crime. This leads to the older man's death and puts more pressure on the artist's already fragile mental state. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Duchaussoy, Charles Vanel, (more)
Jacques Demy directed this frothy tribute to the Hollywood musicals of the 1940s, a follow-up to his earlier success The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964). Twin sisters Delphine and Solange (played by real-life sisters Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorleac) live in the small coastal town of Rochefort, where they run a school teaching dancing and music. Both feel frustrated in Rochefort, and they dream of travelling to Paris, where they believe romance and opportunity awaits them. Meanwhile, their single mother, Yvonne (Danielle Darrieux), who runs a cafe in town, pines for her lost love, Simon (Michel Piccoli). One day, one of Yvonne's regular customers, a sailor with an artistic bent named Maxence (Jacques Perrin), shows her a painting of the imaginary girl of his dreams, and she looks just like Delphine, whom he's never met. Meanwhile, Simon has returned to Rochefort, bringing with him a close friend, American pianist Andy Miller (Gene Kelly); Simon has made friends with Solange and introduces her to Andy, who immediately falls in love with her. Sadly, Les Demoiselles de Rochefort was Françoise Dorleac's last film; she died in an auto accident shortly after completing the picture. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Catherine Deneuve, George Chakiris, (more)
- 1963
The scene is the French Riviera. Based on eyewitness testimony, three identically dressed men are accused of kidnapping and murdering a child, but two of them can possibly be guilty. Is the innocent party Anthony Perkins, an American who has fled to France in the wake of a sex scandal? Is it Italian Renato Salvatori, whose bad reputation with women has preceded him? Or is it Jean-Claude Brialy, a French businessman whose sister uses her sexual wiles to clinch her brother's big business deals? We'll never know...because Two Are Guilty director Andre Cayatte, a longtime critic of the French justice system, contrives to have all three suspects killed by an out-of-control mob. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anthony Perkins, Jean-Claude Brialy, (more)
- 1962
In this crime drama, an amiable, popular middle-age man (Bernard Blier) abruptly changes when he heads out for a nice picnic, sees a half-naked girl, makes a pass at her, gets rejected, and kills her. No one is the wiser and her lover ends up taking the rap. During the ensuing trial, the real killer finds himself on the jury. As he listens, his conscience begins to bother him and he helps get the defendant acquitted but the town community refuses to accept it. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bernard Blier, Danièle Delorme, (more)
- 1962
In this melodrama, a prominent Parisian businessman's wife finds her life incredibly boring until she has an affair with a greasy garage mechanic who is only after her money. Her husband is suspicious of his wife, but he doesn't know the lover's identity; he suspects he brother and business partner. Trouble ensues when the malicious mechanic tampers with the car he assumes the husband will drive and inadvertently kills the brother instead. The guilt-ridden wife then confesses her infidelity, the husband forgives her, and the wicked lover is arrested. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1961
Jean Gabin carries this conventional political drama set in pre-World War II France. He is Emile, a retired politico with a long memory, a curmudgeon who is not yet prepared to stand on the sidelines and watch others wield power. Flashbacks fill in the details about his earlier career -- and why he wants to block the new cabinet proposed by a politician he knew in his former days of government service. A bit long at almost two hours, director Henri Verneuil worked often enough with Gabin in his films to elicit a strong portrayal. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean Gabin, Bernard Blier, (more)
- 1961
In this thriller, a greedy young woman becomes a police informer. Her father is in prison for participating in a jewel theft. The girl is looking for the jewels he hid. Unfortunately, she must compete with other real criminals. In the end she is arrested for killing her own lover. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
In his final film, Jean Cocteau brilliantly evokes memories of his past triumphs, Blood of a Poet (1930) and Orpheus (1949). Cocteau casts himself as an aging poet who knows he is dying (as indeed he was); his greatest desire is to be reborn so that he can qualify for celestial immortality. The stellar cast includes such French film favorites as Jean-Pierre Léaud, Jean Marais, and François Perier, along with Hollywood's Yul Brynner and such Cocteau friends and admirers as Pablo Picasso, singer Charles Aznavour, and bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguen. Given the influence Cocteau's influence over the French New Wave directors of the 1950s and 1960s, it is altogether appropriate that the producer of Testament of Orpheus was François Truffaut. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean Cocteau, Edouard Dermit, (more)
- 1958
Fernandel plays a French customs sergeant who conducts an ongoing war of nerves with Italian smuggler Toto on the Franco-Italian border. The French sergeant discovers that, through a long-ago hospital mix-up, he is actually an Italian citizen. Now Fernandel is legally prevented from arresting Toto--and to make matters worse, he is the lawbreaker in Italian eyes because of his divorce and remarriage! The publicity attending the long-anticipated teaming of France's favorite funnyman Fernandel (born Fernand Joseph Desire Contandin) and his Italian counterpart Toto (born Antonio de Curtis Gagliardi Ducas Comneno di Bisanzio) helped to make The Law Is the Law one of the most successful films in both comedians' careers. The film, incidentally, was a French production (originally titled La Loi c'est la Loi), so in fact it was Toto, not Fernandel, who was the "alien." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1958
Robert Hossein was writer, director and star of the suspense melodrama Toi le Venin. Picked up by a beautiful motorist, jobless hitchhiker Pierre (Hossein) is subsequently romanced by the girl. Immediately thereafter, however, she dumps him, attempting to run him over as a final insult. Memorizing her license number, Pierre pursues the enigmatic motorist. Arriving at her home, Pierre is met by two young ladies (Marina Vlady and Odelle Versois), either one of whom might be the woman he's looking for. The rest of the film concerns Pierre's efforts to figure out which of his two hostesses intends to do him further harm. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marina Vlady, Robert Hossein, (more)
- 1955
The title of this French noir drama translates to The Black File. Jean-Marc Bory plays Jacques Arnaud, an idealistic young investigator who comes to work in a small French town. He is soon involved in a mysterious case incriminating a town notable. Arnaud devotes himself to the case but the upshot of this is rather surprising to all concerned, not to mention the audience. Like Cayatte's previous efforts, Le Dossier Noir is based on the proposition that the phrase "French justice" can at times be oxymoronic. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean-Marc Bory, Bernard Blier, (more)
- 1954
Letters from My Windmill (Les Lettres De Mon Moulin) was adapted by French-filmmaker Marcel Pagnol from three short stories by Alphonse Daudet. The first, "The Three Low Masses," involves a clergyman whose taste for gourmet foods leads him to confrontation with Satan. "The Elixir of Father Gaucher" tells of a group of monks who deal in homemade wines and spirits to replenish their church coffers. And "The Secret of Master Cornille" is the story of businessman's harmless ruse which snowballs into near-tragedy. Roger Crouzet plays Alphonse Daudet, who repairs to a deserted windmill to write the three stories dramatized herein. The US prints of Letters from My Windmill contain subtitles written by Hollywood expatriate Preston Sturges. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roger Crouzet, Robert Vattier, (more)
- 1954
Paris Incident was originally released as Telegramme pour M. Herriot. Filmed on location in an unfashionable Montmartre neighborhood, the story concentrates on telegram-delivery-boy Gerard Gervais. While en route to three important deliveries, Gerard is involved in a traffic accident. The all-important telegrams are lost in the excitement, forcing Gerard to embark upon a desperate all-night search for the missing missives. Along the way, he makes the acquaintance of numerous eccentric types, each one more colorful than the last. Paris Incident is enhanced by the marvelous harmonica score by Flore Flavey. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Oliver Hussenot
- 1954
The Gallic swashbuckler Cadet-Rousselle stars Francois Perrier in the title role. In love with the mayor's daughter, Rousselle is separated from her by money and by his low-born parentage. He heads off to Paris, there to find fame and fortune and make himself worthy of his sweetheart. En route, however, Cadet-Rousselle gets mixed up with a band of gypsies who plan to help the Royalists topple the New French Republic. Adventure piles upon adventure as Rousselle narrows escapes death at every turn. With him all the way is the new love of his life, fiery gypsy lass Violetta (Dany Robin). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bourvil, François Perier, (more)
- 1952
Originally titled Nous Sommes Tout des Assassins, We Are All Murderers was directed by Andre Cayette, a former lawyer who detested France's execution system. Charles Spaak's screenplay makes no attempt to launder the four principal characters (Marcel Mouloudji, Raymond Pellegrin, Antoinine Balpetre, Julien Verdeir): never mind the motivations, these are all hardened murderers. Still, the film condemns the sadistic ritual through which these four men are brought to the guillotine. In France, the policy is to never tell the condemned man when the execution will occur--and then to show up without warning and drag the victim kicking and screaming to his doom, without any opportunity to make peace with himself or his Maker. By the end of this harrowing film, the audience feels as dehumanized as the four "protagonists." We are All Murderers was roundly roasted by the French law enforcement establishment, but it won a special jury prize at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marcel Mouloudji, Raymond Pellegrin, (more)
- 1952
The works of Guy de Maupassant have likely been adapted by more French filmmakers than those of any other author (with the possible exception of Georges Simenon). Max Ophuls harnesses three Maupassant short stories to suit his artistic purposes in Le Plaisir (House of Pleasure). In "The Mask," an aging lothario (Jean Galland) learns more about himself than he cares to when he dons a mask to cover his wrinkles. In "The House of Madame Tellier," the proprietress of a brothel (Madeline Renaud) closes up shop one day for an unusual (for her) personal mission. And in "The Model," both the title character (Simone Simon) and her artist-lover (Daniel Gelin) pay the price for her romantic impulsiveness. Each of the playlets in Le Plaisir explore conflicting sides of human nature -- a theme common to both the works of Maupassant and the films of Ophuls. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Claude Dauphin, Jean Galland, (more)
