Maurice Travail Movies
- 1988
- PG13
Claude Sautet's A Few Days With Me (Quelque Jours avec Moi) stars Daniel Auteuil as the emotionally disturbed heir to a supermarket empire. Auteuil's mother Danielle Darrieux tries to give her son some purpose in life by assigning him the task of reinvigorating one of the supermarket chain's least profitable links. Every effort Auteuil makes to reach out and communicate with his employees is doomed to failure due to his conscious and unconscious insensitivities. He is humanized by a brief affair with maid Sandrine Bonnaire. The romance doesn't last, and Auteuil ends up back in a mental institution, but still there is a ray of hope for him in the final scenes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Daniel Auteuil, Sandrine Bonnaire, (more)
- 1988
Fred Segal (Richard Anconina) is a commercial director whose marriage is headed for disaster in this light romantic comedy drama. He decides he wants to play music and takes flute lessons from the beautiful Isabelle (Anemone). The experience wakens feelings of romance in Fred he thought were long-since dead, and soon he must chose between his wife and his musical teacher. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Anconina, Anémone, (more)
- 1986
This made-for-TV adaptation of Anita Brookner's novel is an account of a novelist, still smarting from a failed relationship, who finds refuge at a Swiss lakefront resort. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- 1986
The clash in this Philippe De Broca comedy between a bored middle-class stiff and a much more exciting, lawless female offers no new insights into the genre. Hubert Durieux (Claude Brassuer) works in a staid bank job and has to put up with demands from his ex-wife and a daughter who may not have made the right choice in a husband. Other females plague him, but the one who turns him around is a gypsy (Valerie Kaprisky) who first gets his attention by stealing his car. Once she has captured his manly interest, she tricks and cons him into a daring adventure that shatters the moralistic four walls he has built around himself. Some of the Romany (gypsy) population may not be too happy with this stereotypical portrayal, no matter how charming the thief. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Claude Brasseur, Valérie Kaprisky, (more)
Menage begins as a comedy of sorts, but be warned: it develops into a very dark, very confusing probe into the seamier aspects of Parisian life. Gerard Depardieu plays a crude but charismatic thief, whose own gayness does not prevent his commiserating with those of the opposite sex. Miou-Miou and Michel Blanc are young, impoverished lovers who fall under Depardieu's influence. He gains their confidence by introducing them to kinky sex, then sucks them into a vortex of crime. Director Bertrand Blier, who in most of his films has explored the awesome power (rather than pleasure) of sex, nearly outdoes himself in Menage (aka Tenue de Soiree). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Depardieu, Michel Blanc, (more)
- 1979
- R
Buffet Froid is an absurd black comedy that cunningly reverses the conventions of the crime thriller to comment on the alienating and dehumanizing effects of contemporary urban life. It starts with Alphonse Tram (Gérard Depardieu) discovering that his casual subway acquaintance (Michel Serrault) is lying down with Alphonse's penknife sticking out of his belly. When he tries to report the crime to his neighbor, a police inspector (Bernard Blier), the latter refuses to listen, saying that he is not at work now. Later, Alphonse's wife is killed, and her hapless murderer (Jean Carmet) almost immediately confesses to Alphonse, but neither the husband nor the police inspector seem to be shocked. The three embark on a series of adventures and bizarre encounters in modern Paris. ~ Yuri German, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Depardieu, Bernard Blier, (more)
- 1975
Right after his release from prison, Victor (Jean-Paul Belmondo) resumes his con-man activities. He rents apartments he doesn't own, sells nonexistent fighter planes to African countries, and by turns pretends to be a gardener, lawyer, private detective, governmental official, and even a transvestite in order to fool his unsuspecting victims. He does it all under the nose of his charming but naive parole officer Marie-Charlotte (Genevieve Bujold). When Victor finds out that Marie-Charlotte's father curates the museum that has an extremely valuable painting, he and his friends decide to steal it. ~ Yuri German, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean-Paul Belmondo, Geneviève Bujold, (more)
- 1973
Based on a true story, this French crime/action drama tells the story of three young prisoners who escape from their courthouse arraignment with a number of hostages. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Daniel Cauchy, Gilles Segal, (more)
- 1973
Though his father is a collaborator, and the Germans have wrought havoc in his part of southern France, Perret (Philippe Leotard) wants nothing to do with either side in the war. In this French World War II action/adventure Perret is forced to kill a German in self-defense, so that his desire to remain neutral becomes irrelevant; by necessity he joins up with a resistance group. At first he does as little as he decently can, but gradually he transforms into a committed partisan. This, even though his new comrades are dying in great numbers around him. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- 1973
This is one of the seemingly innumerable French comedies made in the early '70s featuring the musicians-turned-comedians, Les Charlots. They play a group of inept but good-hearted fellows who help a small market owner compete with a large supermarket across the street by shoplifting enough from the big store to enable the smaller store to carry on. The store owner is able to re-do his little store and, though it offers little competition to the larger one, he is bought out for a lot of money. Highlights include a motorcycle chase and several songs. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Les Charlots, Roger Carel, (more)
