Michel Auclair Movies

Gerard Darmon and Anais Jeanneret star in this low-budget thriller from director Miguel Courtois. A journalist wrongly accused of murder enlists the help of a femme fatale to track down the real killer. The late Michel Auclair plays a shady film producer in his last screen role, and the feature is dedicated to him. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

In this run-of-the-mill crime drama, Bernard Giraudeau is Daniel Chetman, someone who wants to leave the life of violence he knew in his neighborhood -- and cannot do so because his nemesis, a strutting street gangster now involved with organized crime, continues to terrorize the inhabitants of Chetman's turf. After much spilled blood, a parade of ugly underground types, and various sexual scenes, Chetman reduces the forces of evil to a reasonable level of opposition -- but who knows if the neighborhood will be different in the end. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Directed by TV-anthology veteran Jeannot Szwarc, Enigma has a certain small-screen "feel" to it. Adopting a musical-comedy foreign accent, Martin Sheen plays Alex Holbeck, an Iron Curtain defector who returns to East Germany at the behest of the CIA. His mission is to save five political "undesirables" from the communists. Holbeck runs up against some formidable opposition, namely ambitious KGB agent Dimitri Vasilkov (Sam Neill) and a quintet of highly trained Soviet assassins. Brigitte Fossey co-stars as Holbeck's former love, whom he involves in his escape plans by asking her to romance the susceptible Vasilkov. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this thriller, a private detective disregards the many warnings he has been given and continues searching for a missing blind girl. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Michel Gerfaut (Alain Delon) makes his living playing poker. But when he stops to help an injured motorist on the side of the road one night, he unwittingly gets involved in a sinister arms deal cover-up. The capable Gerfaut goes on holiday, bringing his longtime girlfriend, Béa (Dalila Di Lazzaro), to Trouville to meet his mother (Simone Renant). He soon finds himself the target of killers hired by the pompous Emmerich (Pierre Dux) and his ruthless underling, Leprince (Michel Auclair), who suspect he's working for their competitors. Gerfaut unsuccessfully tries to get help from a policeman friend, but the police are tied in with the crooked military aeronautics company. Backed into a corner, Gerfaut strikes back against his attackers, eventually taking the fight right to Emmerich's doorstep. Three Men to Kill, based on the well-regarded novel by Jean-Patrick Manchette, was directed by Jacques Deray, who also co-wrote the script with frequent collaborator (Borsalino et al) Delon, who also produced, and Christopher Frank. Delon and Frank later adapted Manchette's Pour la peau d'un flic for the actor's directorial debut. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi

A predictable melodrama, Le Toubib is based on a novel by Jean Freustie about an unhappy surgeon and the tragedy of war. Jean-Marie (Alain Delon) has a successful practice in Paris when his marriage crumbles and he is sent to operate in a field hospital in an unspecified war zone in Europe. He is driven up the wall by Harmony (Veronique Jannot) an attractive assistant whose sunny disposition grates on the surgeon's nerves, or at least, on the one he has left. Then he discovers that Harmony is suffering from an incurable disease and the pathos begins. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

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, Rovi

Director André Téchiné brings his usual obsessions -- including a preoccupation with the fortunes of the bourgeoisie -- to this episodic drama, which serves as a thinly-veiled portrait of France's economic peaks and valleys from the 1930s through the 1970s. Jeanne Moreau stars as Berthe Pedret, a simple laundry woman who marries Hector (Michael Auclair), son of a wealthy, upper class, Spanish immigrant family that owns a successful farm machinery factory. Through a series of vignettes, Techine depicts the passage of years, during which the ambitious working class woman blooms through several bold moves, such as negotiating a workers' strike settlement and using her alliance with the war-time French Resistance movement to increase the enterprise's prestige. Eventually, Berthe comes to control the family's fortunes, but economic challenges in the 1950s force her to turn to an unlikely source for financial help: her obnoxious sister-in-law Regina (Marie-France Pisier). Regina, who ran off with a wealthy American after the war, may now be willing to aid Berthe in exchange for her freedom. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

In Paris, in 1942, on a Thursday, the Parisian police herded together some 13,000 Jews for deportation to German territory. In this story, Paul (Christian Rist) is a teenager who tries to prevent this from happening. At first he attempts to save two elderly Jews, but they are resigned to their fate and comply with the order to assemble. For a short while, he is able to keep Jeanne (Christine Pascal) from joining them, but, after a long and strenuous day, she finally escapes from him he is too tired to chase after her. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

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, Rovi

In this modernized adaptation of the much-filmed Alexandre Dumas story, The Count of Monte Cristo, Edmond Dantes was sent to prison on a trumped-up charge of betraying the revolution, but he managed to escape to South American and earn a fortune. Now he his back in France and is attempting to bring some sort of justice to those who betrayed him. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi