Edouard Delmont Movies

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

Retour de Don Camillo (The Return of Don Camillo) is the sequel to the internationally popular French comedy The Little World of Don Camillo. Fernandel returns as the title character, a resourceful, pugnacious Italian village priest. Because of his previous run-ins with communist mayor Peppone (Gino Cervi), Don Camillo is sent to another parish by the Church. Soon, however, all the villagers -- Peppone included -- realize that the priest is indispensable, and they demand his return. In one of the film's funniest moments, an elderly citizen steadfastly refuses to die until Don Camillo administers last rites. Like its predecessor, Retour de Don Camillo is based on a novel by Givoanni Guareschi -- and, also like the earlier film, Retour was a worldwide hit. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The English-language title of La Table Aux-Creves is The Hunting Ground. Fernandel goes the "Raimu" route as a farmer whose wife unexpectedly commits suicide. The grieving husband tries to fathom the reasons for his wife's rash act, while the local townsfolk come up with a few bizarre theories of their own. Despite the grimness of the situation, Fernandel manages to find time for the comic "mugging" that brought him international fame. La Table Aux-Creves was adapted by its director Henri Verneuil from a novel by Marcel Ayme. The film was the first of several successful collaborations between star Fernandel and director Henri Verneuil. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

L'Ecole Buissoniere could be described as a small-scale Gallic version of Goodbye Mr. Chips. Bernard Blier stars as Pascal, a head-in-the-clouds teacher forced to come down to earth when he is assigned a woebegone rural school. Hoping to stimulate his students, Pascal digresses from the established curriculum, only to run afoul of the hidebound adults in the vicinity. Eventually, however, he is successful with his students--all but one. The climax finds Pascal desperately trying to turn his lone "problem student" around before his license is revoked. The film works best in the one-on-one scenes between Bernard Blier and recalcitrant schoolboy D. Caron. The 115-minute running time was trimmed considerably when L'Ecole Buissoniere made it to American television in the mid-1950s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Originally released in 1939, Three Hours went under the titles Le Deseteur and Je t'attendri during its initial European run. In his last French film appearance before WW II, Jean-Pierre Aumont plays WW I soldier Paul Marchand. When his troop train is stalled for repairs in his hometown, Marchand takes advantage of the delay to visit his sweetheart Marie (Corinne Luchaire). Within the next three hours, Marchand discovers that (a) his letters to Marie have been held up by his own spiteful mother and (b) Marie has been driven from her home. With little time to spare, our hero reconciles Marie with his mother, bidding them a fond adieu as he reboards his train. By the time Three Hours was released in the U.S. in 1944, Jean Pierre-Aumont had been signed by MGM, while co-star Corinne Luchaire had been denounced by the Allied occupation troops as a collaborationist. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Le Deserteur (The Deserter) is Jean-Pierre Aumont, who during WWI jumps off a troop train en route to the battlefield. It's not that he's a coward: Aumont hopes to locate his runaway sweetheart, who has taken a job in a rundown tavern. It turns out that the hero's own mother, a bitter, spiteful woman, is responsible for his girlfriend's present sorry state. Hoping to take her away from all this, Aumont is cornered by the tavern's hateful owner, who intends to turn the boy over to the military authorities so that he can have the girl all to himself. A struggle follows, ending in a killing, but a timely German bombing raid wipes out all evidence of the "crime." Less than two hours after his desertion, Aumont manages to rejoin his regiment, having solved all of his girlfriend's problems in record time. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide