Patrick Dewaere Movies
Short-lived Patrick Dewaere was one of the most promising and popular French actors of the '70s. In 1968, he joined Café de la Gare, the troupe of performers which also included such future stars as Gérard Depardieu and Miou-Miou. After initially appearing under the pseudonym Patrick Morin, he finally opted for Dewaere, which was his grandmother's maiden name. Onscreen from 1971 in various bit parts, Dewaere made the breakthrough with his first major role in Bertrand Blier's anarchic comedy Les Valseuses (1974) where he and Gerard Depardieu starred as two young delinquents. The actor would team up again with Depardieu in Blier's Oscar-winning comedy Preparez Vos Mouchoirs (1978). Despite Dewaere's obvious talent for comedy, he was often successfully cast as a fragile, neurotic individual. Shortly after the release of Paradis Pour Tous (1982), the black comedy where his character committed suicide, the actor shot himself in a hotel room. The Patrick Dewaere Award was established in France in 1983. The actor was the subject of the French documentary Patrick Dewaere, which was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 1992. ~ Yuri German, All Movie Guide- 1975
In truth, there are two French Detectives in this European crime melodrama. Lino Ventura plays an aging, been-around gumshoe, while Patrick Dewaere is his young, callow and cynical associate. The two detectives don't like each other much at first, but this will change. Their current assignment: getting the goods on a corrupt politician. Occasionally more violent than it needs to be, The French Detective has the twin advantages of authenticity and sincerity. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lino Ventura, Patrick Dewaere, (more)
- 1975
Into a timeless, pastoral community, which lies along the river Fango, come two restless men on horseback, their heads filled with citified ideas and schemes. The men encounter the simple folk of the place, and start to make some friendships. However, when one of them wants to run off with a local girl, it causes big problems for them both. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Emmanuelle Riva, Rufus, (more)
- 1981
In French filmmaker Bertrand Blier's seriocomic Beau Pere, Ariel Besse plays a 14-year-old girl who is perversely attracted to her 30-year-old stepfather (Patrick Dewaere). Daddy fends off these unnatural attentions, but eventually gives in and allows himself to be seduced. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Patrick Dewaere, Ariel Besse, (more)
- 1973
The line between fantasy and reality is once more blurred in this Belgian/French drama about a professor of literature who develops an obsession with a beautiful woman he meets (or imagines meeting) in the woods. He has an affair with this woman, but before he can run off with her, his daughter, who is an object of his incestuous desire (as several daydream sequences make clear), kills the stranger. Perhaps, though, his daughter only kills his daydreams when she gets married. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean-Luc Bideau, Danièle Delorme, (more)
- 1975
- R
Jane Birkin stars in this sex farce as a young British prostitute in Paris who, after her soft-core business fails, decides to go big-time and incorporate herself, selling stock to four disparate investors. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jane Birkin, Patrick Dewaere, (more)
- 1978
Like other young men in his soccer-obsessed town, a belligerent and rebellious factory worker Francois Perrin plays on a local team. His obnoxious tendencies endear him to no one. Trouble brews when a woman cries rape and the team's star player becomes the chief suspect. To protect the valued kicker, the team owners decide to frame the boorish Francois for the crime. As a result, he loses his job, gets booted from the team and tossed into jail. Shortly thereafter, the team is en route to a key match and their bus gets into an accident (in one of the story's comical highlights) that disables half the team. Now desperate for players, the owners arrange to get Francois temporarily released. The rest of this lively French farce follows Francois as he gets sweet revenge upon all those who wronged and rejected him. The screenplay was penned by distinguished writer/director Francis Veber, who is best known for writing La Cage aux Folles. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Patrick Dewaere, France Dougnac, (more)
- 1976
Patrick Dewaere plays Andre, a hot-tempered young man who whiles away his spare time by fantasizing about the action films of Douglas Fairbanks. For years, a relative of his has promised him a job. For years, he has waited for the job, but to no avail. Finally too frustrated to stand it any more, Andre beats up the relative's boss. Then his girlfriend (Miou-Miou), tired of his tantrums, refuses to see him any more. This prompts even more extreme behavior on his part, though he harms no one but himself this time. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Miou-Miou, Patrick Dewaere, (more)
- 1978
- R
The lightly mocking title Get Out Your Handkerchiefs (Préparez Vos Mouchoirs) sets the tone for this Bertrand Blier-directed amalgam of the sentimental and sardonic. Gérard Depardieu plays an at-wit's-end husband, Raoul, who'll go to any lengths to sexually satisfy his wife, Solange (Carole Laure). Raoul decides that the best thing to cure Solange's boredom would be if she took a lover; thus, he chooses Stéphane (Patrick Dewaere) for the "job." But Stéphane isn't any more successful in arousing Solange than her husband had been. Eventually, it is a 13-year-old boy who quenches Solange's erotic yearnings. Get Out Your Handkerchiefs won a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar as well as a French César award for Best Score (by Georges Delerue). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Depardieu, Patrick Dewaere, (more)
Director Bertrand Blier's Les Valseuses features Gerard Depardieu and Patrick Dewaere as a pair of sociopaths wending their way across France. Though Depardieu is the more dominant of the two, both men are equally culpable in their disregard for common decency. They are particularly rough on women, even the like-minded Miou-Miou, whom they both love in their own way. Jeanne Moreau has a brief bit as an ex-convict who sleeps with both Depardieu and Dewaere. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Depardieu, Miou-Miou, (more)
- 1981
The beautiful Helene (Catherine Deneuve) works in a hospital as an anesthesiologist and so when she accidentally hits Gilles (Patrick Dewaere) while driving her car, she can jump out and know exactly what to do to make sure he is not seriously hurt. The two start off a relationship based on this "chance" meeting, though the inauspicious beginning should have served as a warning. Gilles does not do very much except live in a room in his family's hotel and hang out. His lethargic approach to life is an anesthetic in itself, and since Helene is still mourning the death of her former lover a few years before, she is not overly anxious to start a new romance. The two of them go back and forth in a cat-and-mouse game until Helene tires of going nowhere and decides to leave for Paris. Considering how difficult it is for Gilles to rise to any action, it seems that Helene may remain alone unless she runs into someone else. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Catherine Deneuve, Patrick Dewaere, (more)
- 1979
A large international cast takes part in this comedy in which the stories of numerous individuals whose cars are stalled in a massive Roman traffic jam are told. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alberto Sordi, Orazio Orlando, (more)
- 1978
Marie (Annie Girardot) teaches high school and has a 16-year-old daughter in her class. Divorced some years previously, she has some vague egalitarian notions about friendship with her students and leaves her door open to them. One of her protégés is found beaten up just outside her door, and an emergency physician comes by to treat her. When her daughter starts seeing someone she doesn't much like, and she begins having a brief affair (her first since the divorce) with the ER doctor, she begins to reconsider her policy. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Annie Girardot, Patrick Dewaere, (more)
- 1971
This English-language French production, directed by Rene Clement is a psychological/spy thriller, and features an excellent score by Gilbert Becaud. Faye Dunaway is Jill, the wife of a former industrial spy (played by Frank Langella). Her husband's employers are not perfectly reconciled to his retirement, however, even though he is firm in his refusal to rejoin them. As the film proceeds, we discover that Jill is a nervous sort, and the spymasters seek by various means to take advantage of her nervous temperament in order to induce her husband to work for them again. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Faye Dunaway, Frank Langella, (more)
- 1977
In this drama, Temistocle Orimbelli (Ugo Tognazzi) is a middle-aged man with a profound appreciation for womankind -- an appreciation that does not extend to Cleofe (Garbiella Giacobbe) his dried up old shrew of a wife. He is much taken with the charms of his sister-in-law Matilde (Ornella Muti), who is a widow. The attraction appears mutual, but he has first to overcome the obstacle of wifely suspicion in order to consummate the union. Eventually, he is able to appear at his boat at the same time as the lovely Matilde, and what had begun as a simple assignation turns into a complex tragedy. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ugo Tognazzi, Ornella Muti, (more)
- 1977
Fayard (Patrick Dewaere) is a magistrate of the French courts, who is unusually enthusiastic in seeking justice. For instance, when his girlfriend is trapped in a store-front bordello, he has no qualms about arranging (and joining) a police raid on the place. This stunt earned him the nickname "the Sheriff." However, this otherwise shy and diminutive fellow has made many enemies, both in the bureaucracy and among the criminal classes, and before long they catch up to him. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Patrick Dewaere, Aurore Clément, (more)
- 1971
This film is a French period comic romance, set in the time just surrounding the French Revolution (1789). "Year Two," of the French title refers to the second year following the revolution. Those who guided the French Revolution renamed the days of the week, the months of the year, and much more. They also began their calendar from the time of the revolution. In this film, Jean-Paul Belmondo plays the husband of a vivacious, two-timing, and socially ambitious young woman (Marlene Jobert). After he kills one of her aristocratic lovers, the husband flees to the New World (the Americas). He returns to France after the revolution, finds that he has been divorced, and then works hard to woo his ex-wife away from all the important men and outlaw aristocrats she is spending time with. Happiness reigns anew as, remarried, they both attain aristocratic status in Napolean's regime. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean-Paul Belmondo, Marlène Jobert, (more)
- 1975
Sometimes the story that a journalist is assigned lands him with a boring tale. That's what Francois (Jean-Michel Folon) believes when he is given the job of writing about a "worker"'s life. When he meets the man, he discovers that the man's wife has just left him and moved back to her mother's. The newsman and a friend of his take the poor man out on the town to comfort him. The reporter also interviews the woman who is making the worker's life difficult and even finds a way to fix things up between the couple. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rufus, Jean-Michel Folon, (more)
- 1976
The drawbacks and difficulties of military life are explored in this film. Paolo Passeri (Michele Placido) is a college graduate, somewhat spoiled, somewhat effete, who finds himself in an officer training program under the stern martinet, Captain Asciutto (Franco Nero). He gradually becomes acclimated to the military mind-set, and when the Captain's wife (Miou-Miou) decides to take a romantic interest in him, he does not report her dangerous peculiarities to anyone. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Franco Nero, Miou-Miou, (more)
- 1981
A young jounalist (Patrick Dewaere) stumbles across something much more sinister than a simple suicide in the death of a politician - the death seems to be an assassination contrived by an American multinational company intent on taking over several French industries. The journalist's objective is to garner enough evidence to expose the American corporation for what it really is, before French companies start disappearing - and before any more corpses accumulate, including his own. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Patrick Dewaere, Caroline Cellier, (more)
- 1979
Paco (Alfredo Lando) is a middle-aged glass blower who has a lucrative after-hours business as a male stud in this unusual comedy drama. His wife Maria (Christine Pascal) is the supposedly barren woman who approves of her husband's sideline. Paco meets Pocapena (Patrick Dewaere) in a local bar and tells him that Paco is his hero. The young man offers his services for nothing, and Paco takes him up on his proposition. Paco soon has his first sexual failure, which quickly ruins his reputation and leads to the young man assuming the role as the coveted stud. Maria soon becomes pregnant, leading to more confusion in Paco's crumbling life. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alfredo Landa, Christine Pascal, (more)
- 1982
In this sci-fi film a suicidal salesman is saved when he encounters a scientist who is working on a revolutionary new antidepressant. The man becomes so peaceful of all around him, that he begins driving everyone around him crazy. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Patrick Dewaere, Jacques Dutronc, (more)
- 1992
The Breton-born French actor Patrick Dewaere (1947-1982) was acclaimed as one of the two best actors of his generation, along with Gerard Depardieu, before his death by suicide at age 35. This documentary is an exploration of the man's life and work, featuring clips from his many films and interviews with some of his friends and relatives. Notably absent is any appearance by his friend and rival Depardieu. In addition to celebrating his gifts, the documentary explores the state of mind which led to the gifted actor's death at the height of his thirty-year career. Apparently, no one appreciated that this handsome man's gift for playing troubled losers had a profound basis in his offscreen life. This film was first shown at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival, which had instituted a special acting prize in Dewaere's name the year after his death, in 1983. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bertrand Blier
- 1980
- R
In his final film before taking his own life, Patrick Dewaere stars as Serge, a writer whose life is disrupted by an affair with the enigmatic Carol (Clio Goldsmith). ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Patrick Dewaere, Clio Goldsmith, (more)
