Michel Auclair Movies

Laure (Pascale Audrei) enters a convent to escape the real world and surround herself in pity in this distaff drama that plays like a soap opera. As a young girl she is accused of lesbian leanings towards another girl when her brother turns her letter over to her father. A priest tries to help Laure when she attends a religious school, and a man with an invalid wife falls for Laure before she loses her virginity to a doctor. She chooses to take refuge in a convent to isolate herself from any further bad experiences. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Trouble begins when five Frenchmen pool their money in an attempt to pull off a huge drug deal. One intercepts the money and kills his friend to cover his tracks. The others are haunted by doubt and innuendo to the point where they all point fingers and guns at each other. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

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 Gabin once again stars as that other famous French detective Inspector Maigret in this murder mystery that is less a mystery than it is a psychological exercise. When the apparently slow but actually clear-headed Maigret returns to the small town where he grew up, he is called upon to help out a Countess (Valentine Tessier) who is threatened by someone unidentified. As Maigret reminisces and goes back over his past, including his romantic interest in the Countess, she ends up murdered and he has a new case on his hands. Rather than go the way of lab tests and photos of the crime scene, Maigret starts to analyze the underlying emotional currents in the townspeople themselves. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Best known for his La Cage aux Folles, director Edouard Molinaro has a lesser film here in this occasionally erotic story about a summer romance. A young artist is traveling to the home of a glamorous friend for the summer season when he picks up an attractive woman at a bar. He decides to bring her along, which turns out to be too hasty a decision. While partying away the summer, the son of the hostess dallies with the artist's young woman and she vacillates in her feelings between the two men. The atmosphere and the woman's ambivalence add up to tragedy in the end. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, 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

Reproduction Interdite (Copying Forbidden) is a heavily plotted meller about an art forgery. A clever gang of thieves plots to remove a valuable Gaugin from a museum, create an imitation of the masterpiece, then pass off the phony as the genuine article. Yes, the villains are clever, but they never figure in the human element. Complicating this "perfect crime" is an imperfect murder and a few other unforeseen roadblocks to success. Reproduction Interdite was purchased for American consumption by a TV syndication firm specializing in providing "new" material for the Late Late Shows throughout the nation. ~ 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

Quai des Blondes stars Michel Auclair as a handsome cigarette smuggler named Jacques. When his boat is robbed of its cargo, Jacques knows better than to turn to the cops. The remainder of the film could be subtitled "The Revenge of Jacques," as our anti-hero gets even with his foes. As the title indicates, Jacques also finds time for romance -- two romances, in fact, seemingly conducted simultaneously. The ladies in question are played by Barbara Laage and Madeleine LeBeau, the latter best known to American audiences for her performance as glamorous camp-follower Yvonne in Casablanca. Quai des Blondes was lensed on location in Marseilles and Algiers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Barbara Laage essays the title role in Zoe. Our heroine's adventures begin when she catches the eye of a big-city playboy named Arthur (Michel Auclair), who is attracted not only to Zoe's beauty, but by her insistence upon telling nothing but the whole truth. This trait causes no end of comic complications when Zoe moves into the palatial home of Arthur's family. The limit comes when Zoe botches a big business deal formulated by Arthur's not-altogether-honest father (Louis Seigner). Zoe is based on a stage farce by Jean Marsan. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

As the title of this French crime melodrama indicates, there's always two sides to the story when murder is involved. The scene is a courtroom, where Louis (Michel Auclair) is on trial for murder. The prosecution claims that Louis deflowered the female victim, forced her into a sordid lifestyle, then murdered her when she was no longer useful to him. As the trial rolls on, a series of wildly contradictory flashbacks reconstruct the events leading to the crime. In short, this is Rashomon, French-style. Michel Simon steals the show as a dishevelled ex-lawyer who hopes to redeem himself by taking on Louis' case. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide