Victor Francen Movies

In rural Italy, agent Kelly is kidnapped by a vindictive family headed by the embittered Don Fernando (Victor Francen). Holding Kelly responsible for the death of his son during the Korean War, Don Fernando and his brethren stage a mock court-martial-and it looks as if the grisly outcome has already been decided. This episode was written by Marion Hargrove, who also penned several installments of The Man From UNCLE. "Vendetta" originally aired on October 5, 1966. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Fanny was adapted from the Broadway musical of the same name, which in turn was based on the final chapter of Marcel Pagnol's "Marseilles Trilogy". Pagnol's original, titled Cesar, ends with protagonist Marius returning to the sea, leaving behind his lover Fanny and their son. Expanding upon the original, Fanny picks up the narrative nine years later. Marius (Horst Buchholtz) finally meets his son and is reunited with Fanny (Leslie Caron). She tells him that Panisse (Maurice Chevalier), the elderly suitor who married Fanny to save her from disgrace, is dying. On the verge of shuffling off his mortal coil, Panisse gives Fanny and Marius his blessings, hoping that they'll marry at long last. Charles Boyer co-stars as Cesar, the philosophical gent portrayed in the 1930s film versions of the Pagnol trilogy by the great Raimu. Fanny goes its merry way without any of the songs in the original Broadway score, despite the proven musical talents of Caron and Chevalier. Producer/director Joshua Logan saved himself plenty of embarrassment when he agreed not to release this film as Joshua Logan's Fanny. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Farewell to Arms is the second film version of Ernest Hemingway's World War One novel--and also the last film produced by David O. Selznick (Gone with the Wind). Rock Hudson plays an American serving in the Italian Army during the "War to End All Wars". Jennifer Jones is his lover, a Red cross nurse. They have a torrid affair, which results in Jones' pregnancy. As the months pass, Hudson and Jones lose contact with one another, and Jones believes that Hudson has forgotten her. But a battle-weary Hudson finally makes it to Switzerland, where Jones is hospitalized. The baby is stillborn, and Jones dies shortly afterward, murmuring that her death is "a dirty trick." Filmed on a simpler scale in 1932 (with Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes starring), A Farewell to Arms was blown all out of proportion to "epic" stature for the 1957 remake--so much so that its original director, John Huston, quit the film in disgust. Still, the basic love story is touchingly enacted by Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Hell and High Water brings an intriguing Cold War slant to a standard submarine melodrama. Richard Widmark plays a soldier-of-fortune sub commander who agrees to sell his services to noted atomic scientist Victor Francen and his assistant (and daughter) Bella Darvi. Francen intends to prove that the Communists intend to launch a nuclear attack on Korea from an Arctic island, then blame the attack on the United States. Widmark frankly doesn't give a fig about politics, but he is won over by the sincerity of Francen and his idealistic cohorts, and by the beauty of Ms. Darvi. Before the Reds' evil intentions can be thwarted, however, Widmark must face down a Communist Chinese submarine loaded with highly volatile atomic weaponry. The special effects are very impressive, especially for a mid-1950s 20th Century-Fox production. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This movie is an early horror film classic and certainly one that a well-rounded horror movie aficionado should not miss. An invalid concert pianist dies, leaving a will that does not include his personal secretary Hilary Cummins (Peter Lorre) as a beneficiary. Furious, the left-out yes-man cuts off a hand from the corpse and plots revenge. Unfortunately for Hilary, the hand inherits a life of its own and relentlessly stalks the wild-eyed Lorre as he flees in vain. Special effects keep the audience jumping as they dread the next appearance of this gruesome walking hand. The film is directed by Robert Florey, who also directed Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932). ~ All Movie Guide

Roundly blasted upon its release because of the extreme liberties it takes with the truth, Devotion is better as cinema than as history. Not that it's great cinema, mind you, mainly because the filmmakers opted to replace historical fact with either tired dramatic clichés or wild improbabilities. As an example of the latter, the film posits that Paul Henreid's character, who is a standard-issue film romantic hero (troubled, but understandably so), is the inspiration for two of the most passionate, fiery characters in the canon of English literature. Arthur Kennedy as brother Bramwell is much more passionate and fiery, a fact which tends to further muddle things up. The generic setting is also disappointing; these ladies wrote as they wrote because of where they lived and how they lived, but little of this makes it to the screen. Fortunately, Devotion has Olivia de Havilland and Ida Lupino on hand. De Havilland is quite good, grabbing hold of whatever she can find in the script and milking it for all it's worth. Lupino does even better, often making this standard-issue (at best) writing seem engaging and moving. As indicated, Kennedy also makes things work for him, and Nancy Coleman does what she can with the little she is handed. Erich Wolfgang Korngold's score provides plenty of the atmosphere that Curtis Bernhardt's direction often lacks. Ultimately, Devotion's assets, particularly Lupino and de Havilland, manage to squeeze it into the winner's column -- but it's a pretty close call. The film was produced in 1943, hence the presence of Montagu Love, who died that year. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide

A Graham Greene novel was the source of the Warner Bros. espionage thriller Confidential Agent. Charles Boyer stars as Denard, a former concert musician operating as anti-Fascist secret agent in the Spanish Civil War. While negotiating with the neutral British for some much needed fuel supplies, Denard falls in love with gorgeous Rose Cullen (Lauren Bacall) Sympathetic to his cause, Rose helps Denard contend with such backstabbing villains as Contreras (Peter Lorre) and Mrs. Melandy (Katina Paxinou, who'd ironically won an Academy Award for her sympathetic potrayal in another Spanish Civil War drama, For Whom the Bell Tolls). Critics in 1945 liked Confidential Agent but trounced leading lady Lauren Bacall, suggesting that she was merely a pretty amateur who'd coasted to stardom via her associations with actor Humphrey Bogart and director Howard Hawks. At this point in her career, Bacall was inclined to agree with her detractors-though in time, she certainly proved them wrong. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Zachary Scott made his screen debut in this clever bit of film noir that has gained a cult reputation in recent years. Dutch mystery novelist Cornelius Leyden (Peter Lorre) is travelling through Istanbul when he meets Col. Haki (Kurt Katch), head of the secret police and a big fan of Leyden's work. He offers to tell Leyden about Dimitrios Makropoulos (Zachary Scott), a notorious criminal whose body was just found washed up on the beach. It seems that Makropoulos was involved in nearly every sort of lawless act imaginable, from murder and blackmail to espionage and political assassination. Fascinated, Leyden decides that Makropoulos would be a fine subject for his next book, and he begins researching his life, beginning with Haki's dossier on the criminal. Leyden's research takes him through much of Europe; while en route by rail to Sofia, he meets a large man with an ingratiating chuckle, Mr. Peters (Sydney Greenstreet), who informs Leyden that "There is not enough kindness in the world," and tells him of a good hotel in town. Grateful for the advice, Leyden checks in, only to later find Peters ransacking his room and holding him at gunpoint; it seems that Peters had business with Makropoulos, and he isn't entirely convinced that the master criminal is dead -- especially since his body was found with shabby clothes and no money, and the police in Istanbul had never actually seen a photo of Makropoulos. Based on a novel by Eric Ambler, The Mask of Dimitrios also features Faye Emerson, who was in the news at the time, as she had just wed the son of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This Casablanca-esque spy thriller set during WWII centers on the exploits of the notorious "Flying Dutchman," a fugitive resistance leader from Holland who heads for Lisbon where he hooks up with other members of the underground. One of them is a beautiful young woman, and none of the others trust her because she is married to an important German official. For the resistance leader, real trouble comes when he is framed for the murder of a fellow agent. Still he escapes from prison and hides out with his other colleague while he works to prove that he is innocent and carry out a major secret mission for the resistance. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon team for the third time in this fact-based biography directed by Mervyn Leroy, based on Eve Curie's book about her mother. In early 1900s Paris, poor Polish student Marie (Greer Garson) gets a chance to study magnetism with kindly professor Jean Perot (Albert Basserman). Perot also arranges for the shy scientist Pierre Curie (Walter Pidgeon) to share the lab with Marie. As they work together, Pierre and Marie fall in love. Pierre eventually musters up the courage to ask her to marry him, and she accepts. After their honeymoon, Marie becomes obsessed with a piece of pitchblende that has been displaying some peculiar properties. After five years of work, Marie discovers radium. But as the years go on, Marie and Pierre struggle to raise money to continue their research, hoping to one day be able to isolate radium from the pitchblende. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

More so than most wartime films, Mission to Moscow must be viewed within the context of its times. Requested by President Roosevelt to make a film supportive of America's Russian allies, Warner Bros. turned to the memoirs of Ambassador Joseph H. Davies, who spent several years prior to WWII in the Soviet Union. As played by Walter Huston, Davies is a pillar of incorruptable integrity, reporting the facts "as I saw them" (only in later years was Davies revealed to be something less than a paragon of virtue who was willing to alter opinions for political, personal and financial expedience). Sent to Moscow by FDR as a means of finding out if Russia is a potentially trustworthy ally in case of war, Davies and his family are given the royal treatment by the Commissars, who display the social, technological, agricultural and artistic advances made under the Stalin regime. Invariably, the Russian citizens are shown to be singing, smiling, freedom-loving rugged individuals-in contrast to the Nazis, who are depicted as humorless automatons. In its efforts to present the USSR in the best possible light, the film glosses over the notorious Purge Trials of 1937, presenting the trials as scrupulously fair and the defendants as unabashed traitors to the Soviet cause. At one point, Russia's annexation of Finland in 1939 is "justified" by Davies' explanation that the Soviets merely wanted to protect their tiny neighbor from Nazi domination! It is unfair to label Mission to Moscow as Communistic or even left-wing, since it was merely parroting the official party line vis-a-vis US/Soviet relations in 1943. Even so, screenwriter Howard Koch found it very difficult to get film work after the war because of his contributions to this "Pinko" project (conversely, Jack Warner pulled a Pontius Pilate, washing his hands of the matter by insisting that he was strongarmed into making the film). Seen objectively, Mission to Moscow is top-rank entertainment, superbly and excitingly assembled in the manner typical of Warners and director Michael Curtiz. The huge cast includes Gene Lockhart as Molotov, attorney Dudley Field Malone as Winston Churchill, Maynart Kippen as a benign, pipe-smoking Stalin, Charles Trowbridge as Secretary Cordell Hull, Leigh Whipper as Hailie Selassie, Georges Renavent as Anthony Eden and Alex Chirva as Pierre Laval, along with the more familiar faces of Ann Harding (as Mrs. Davies), George Tobias, Eleanor Parker, Moroni Olsen, Minor Watson, Jerome Cowan, Duncan Renaldo, Mike Mazurki, Frank Faylen, Edward van Sloan, Louis-Jean Heydt, Monte Blue, Robert Shayne and even Sid (sic) Charisse. Original prints of Mission to Moscow include a 6-minute prologue delivered by the real Joseph Davies. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide