Michel Auclair Movies

An evil and manipulative leader has pushed some of his subjects too far. They join together to stage a revolution. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Jean Cocteau's adaptation of Beauty and the Beast (originally released in France as La Belle et la Bête) stars Josette Day as Beauty and Jean Marais as the Beast. When a merchant (Marcel André) is told that he must die for picking a rose from the Beast's garden, his courageous daughter (Day) offers to go back to the Beast in her father's place. The Beast falls in love with her and proposes marriage on a nightly basis; she refuses, having pledged her troth to a handsome prince (also played by Marais). Eventually, however, she is drawn to the repellent but strangely fascinating Beast, who tests her fidelity by giving her a key, telling her that if she doesn't return it to him by a specific time, he will die of grief. The film features a musical score by Georges Auric. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Camicie Rosse (Red Shirts) was released in most markets as Anita Garibaldi, in deference to the star status of Anna Magnani. The actress plays the wife of the great Italian patriot Garibaldi, who at the beginning of the film hovers on the brink of death, harking back to past glories. Most of the story deals with the European political upheavals of 1848-49, and Garibaldi's participation in these earth-shattering events. Raf Vallone stars as Garibaldi, while the stellar supporting cast includes Alain Cuny, Jacques Sernas, Serge Reggiani and Michel Auclair. According to some reports, Auclair was supposed to have played Garibaldi, but was replaced by Vallone when the film's initial director, Goffriedo Allesandri, was put out of commission by an auto accident (Allesandrishares screen credit with Franco Rosi, who completed the film). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Das Zweite Leben (Double Destiny) is based on Siegfried, a short story and play by Jean Girardoux. Michel Auclair stars as a young French xpert ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The setting for this story is Rahatlcoum, a Roman colony in North Africa, but the "colonists" watch television, have gay bars, trade unions, and traffic problems -- something like the "Flintstones" in an Afro-French incarnation, slipping around on Monty Pythonesque dialogue. A gay Jules César's (Michel Sarrault) expensive vacation causes the population to grumble and gripe, they would rather have mechanic Ben Hur Marcel (Coluche) take Jules' place as their exalted leader. Once she gets out of jail, Cleopatra (Mimi Coutellier) declares that old Ben is actually her long-lost half-brother, and lo and behold, Marcel of the chariot taxis is named the new pharaoh, Aminemphet. French critics loved this film and American critics hated it, leading one to suspect that being French helps considerably in responding to its humor. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

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, All Movie Guide

This filmed version of the 1927 George Gershwin Broadway musical Funny Face utilizes the play's original star, Fred Astaire, and several of the original tunes, then goes merrily off on its own. Astaire is cast as as fashion photographer Dick Avery (a character based on Richard Avedon, the film's "visual consultant"), who is sent out by his female boss Maggie Prescott (Kay Thompson) to find a "new face". It doesn't take Dick long to discover Jo (Audrey Hepburn, who does her own singing), an owlish Greenwich Village bookstore clerk. Acting as Pygmalion to Jo's Galatea, Dick whisks the wide-eyed girl off to Paris and transforms her into the fashion world's hottest model. Along the way, he falls in love with Jo, and works overtime to wean her away from such phony-baloney intellectuals as Professor Emile Flostre (Michel Auclair). The Gershwin tunes include the title song, "S'wonderful", "How Long Has This Been Going On" and "He Loves and She Loves"; among the newer numbers is Kay Thompson's energetic opener "Think Pink". For years available only in washed-out, flat prints, Funny Face was eventually restored to its full Technicolor and VistaVision glory. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In Justice est Faite, French director Andre Cayatte and his favorite screenwriter Charles Spaak tackle the delicate issue of euthanasia. The story is related in flashback, from the vantage point of a murder trial. The central character is Marceline (Valentine Tessier), who kills her incurably ill lover at his request. Emphasis is placed not on the crime itself, but on the thought processes and legal strategies of the prosecution and defense. Justice est Faite won the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Its chance for success in English-speaking countries was hampered somewhat by the film's overabundance of dialogue. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the French legal system, a judge-magistrate conducts criminal investigations. In this story, Suzanne Corbier (Annie Girardot) is one such magistrate who is called upon to determine whether Catherine, who has been having an affair with an Englishman, conspired with him to murder her impotent husband, who condoned the affair. When Suzanne comes to a conclusion, she still must deal with the political demands of her office and her superiors. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Holiday for Henrietta (originally released in 1952 as La Fete a Henriette) is a Pirandellian comedy about the art of moviemaking. Louis Seigner and Henri Cremieux play a team of screenwriters whose latest project is stuck in a mire of indecision. Should fictional heroine Henriette (Dany Robin) be permitted a happy ending as the romantic Seigner insists, or suffer an unhappy one as "film noir" specialist Cremieux demands? While the screenwriters hash out their contrasting points of view, we see a film-within-a-film, dramatizing the formulating screenplay and its abrupt changes of mood and direction. Finally reaching a compromise, the writers are interrupted by one of the actors in their imaginary movie, who informs them that their "original" plot has already been filmed! When Hollywood got hold of Holiday for Henrietta, it pumped up this modest project into a bloated star vehicle for Audrey Hepburn and William Holden, titled Paris When It Sizzles (63). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A stolen letter creates all sorts of trouble for the president of France in this political comedy. The letter is hidden inside the purse of a woman who was once lovers with the leader. Their union resulted in a son, but the president is unaware of this until she, who moved to the US to have her son, finally contacts him 10 years later. Naturally this creates problems for him as he is in a terrible marriage with a woman who doesn't love him, but still he is delighted and so takes the woman and his son to his palace in Versaille where they are hidden. Meanwhile the police begin looking for the troublesome letter. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The "pieds-noir" were Algerians of French heritage who were forced to return to France in 1962, when Algeria became independent. In the first part of this film, based on a novel by Daniel Saint-Hamon, the Narbonis run a little grocery in Algeria and keep their noses out of politics entirely. They are content to mind their own business, in the hopes that others will be equally sensible. Thus, they are bewildered when, in 1962, they are forced to leave what has by now become their native land for the strange country of France. In the second half of the film, their adjustment to life in France is aided by the same stick-to-business attitudes which earlier gave them difficulty. Nonetheless, they experience a number of setbacks, as when a slick Parisian (Michel Auclair) tries to talk them into going into business with him. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide