Louis Jourdan Movies

In this crime comedy, the daughter of a notorious French burglar must follow in her father's illustrious footsteps after he is suddenly killed. She soon finds herself nearly in over her head as she is required to perform a variety of death-defying stunts in order to ply her trade. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Faye Dunaway stars as a successful madam who is faced with difficulties from her "girls" in this made-for-TV movie. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide

Five Emmy nominations went to the two-part TV drama The First Olympics: Athens 1896. The story begins in 1894, when Baron Pierre de Courbetin (Louis Jourdan) announces his intention to stage the first Olympic games of the Modern Era within two years in Athens. The baron heads to the US to recruit an athletic team. Despite disinterest, opposition and spotty funding, de Courbetin assembles his team with the help of Princeton professor William Sloane. The thirteen chosen Americans have a pretty bumpy time of it, but most survive to the final Olympic contest: the grueling Marathon. The supporting cast is top-heavy with veterans from both America and England, including Angela Lansbury, Honor Blackman, Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna. Among the leading players is future NYPD Blue star David Caruso as Irish-American athlete James Connolly. Originally running five hours, The First Olympics was first telecast May 20 and 21, 1986. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Filmed in 1982, Escape to Love wasn't given a general release until 1986. Clara Perryman plays an American student who falls in love with a Polish dissident (Ahron Idale). The girl aids her lover in his escape from the KGB. While rushing towards Paris by train, the two fugitives are forced to do a great deal of crucial soul-searching--especially when politics once more rears its ugly head. Louis Jourdan plays a pivotal role in this well-mounted combination of thrills and romance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The made-for-television The Man in the Iron Mask was, at the very least, the twelfth film version of Alexandre Dumas' 1847 novel. The title character is Philippe (Richard Chamberlain), rightful heir to the throne of France. Enemies of Philippe's twin brother, King Louis XIV (also Chamberlain) plot to kidnap the monarch, lock him in a dungeon, and obscure his identity with an iron mask. But aging musketeer D'Artagnan (Louis Jourdan), who'd virtually raised Louis from boyhood, reunites his old musketeer cohorts to rescue Louis and overthrow the wicked Philippe. Emmy nominations went to scripter William Bast and costumer Olga Lehmann. Photographed by the great Freddie Young, Man in the Iron Mask was first telecast January 17, 1977 ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Richard Chamberlain stars in this lavishly appointed adaptation of the classic Alexandre Dumas adventure story. When Count Edmond Dantes (Richard Chamberlain) is stripped of his wealth and sent to prison for crimes he did not commit, he swears to get revenge against those who wronged him. With the help of Abbe (Trevor Howard), a fellow prisoner, the Count escapes and sets forth to see that justice is done. The supporting cast includes Tony Curtis as Mondego, Louis Jourdan as De Villefort, and Donald Pleasance as Danglars. This seventh of eight film versions of The Count of Monte Cristo was produced for American television but received a theatrical release in Europe. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

An unsubtle but effective TV-movie satire of the "Miss America" syndrome, Great American Beauty Contest stars Joanna Cameron as a fire-breathing feminist who enters the contest of the title. She plans to win the crown, then utterly destroy the contest by delivering a scathing attack on exploitation and sexism instead of an acceptance speech. A subplot concerns contest judge Louis Jourdan, who uses his position to extract sexual favors from the more desperate contestants. Eleanor Parker, the girls' chaperone, gives Jourdan his comeuppance in the film's most satisfying sequence. We won't spoil the twist ending, but we will note that one of the contestants is played by Farrah Fawcett, whose specialty is an endearingly ridiculous belly dance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Made for television, Run a Crooked Mile is an kaleidoscopic espionager filmed in Britain. Louis Jourdan plays a schoolteacher on holiday who is injured in an serious auto accident. When he awakens, Jourdan discovers that two years have elapsed, during which time he has lived the life of a wealthy wastrel. He also learns that his alter ego has become mixed up in a plot to undermine the economy of Europe. Run a Crooked Mile is distinguished by imaginative photography, and by offbeat performance of leading lady Mary Tyler Moore, whose allegiances and honesty are in doubt until the final scenes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ritual of Evil was a sequel to the earlier TV movie Fear No Evil; both were pilots for a never-realized Universal series, Bedevilled. Louis Jourdan stars as a psychiatrist investigating the suicide of one of his patients. He stumbles onto the realization that the death was tied in with the Supernatural, and that perhaps he shouldn't probe any deeper. Were he to stop at this point, the producers would had to have filled the remaining hours' worth of film with commercials or cartoons, so Jourdan forges ahead at the risk of his own life. This concept was eventually refined into Universal's short-lived series The Sixth Sense, which utilized much of the eerie William Goldenberg background music first heard in Ritual of Evil. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the opening episode of The F.B.I.'s fourth season, Inspector Lew Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) and his assistant Tom Colby (William Reynolds) go undercover to trap master spy Lorenz Tabor (Louis Jourdan). Ingredients essential to the intrigue are a bus ticket, a cryptanalysis, and a dead man's hearing aid, which is actually a miniature "holding tank" for top-secret microfilm. Featured in the cast are Nancy Kovack, later the wife of symphony conductor Zubin Mehta, and future Hill Street Blues costar James Sikking. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A series of truck hijackings has coincided with the appearance of stolen American cargoes behind the Iron Curtain. Investigating, Inspector Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) follows the trail of clues to Manning Fryes (Peter Graves), an outwardly respectable businessman who is harboring a terrible secret. In a rare American TV appearance, Louis Jordan is unforgettable as a charming but cold-blooded master spy who uses beautiful women and vulnerable men as his helpless pawns. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Gina Lollobrigida plays a woman who attempts suicide when her affair with the successful businessman Laurent Louis Jourdan fails to satisfy. He has rushed to save his daughter from a philandering lothario much like himself, but Gina is heartbroken when Laurent does not call and give her the attention she feels she deserves. She is helped by her talkative neighbor who is the paramour to the dull doctor who lives next door. Gina soon decides that these so-called "ladies men" she usually falls for are not right for her. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Terrence Rattigan, the playwright who brought us the multicharactered, multistoried Separate Tables, again offers us an episodic cross-section of humanity in The V.I.P.'s. When a heavy London fog paralyzes all air traffic, the lives of several people are profoundly affected. As indicated by the title, most of the characters in this portmanteau film are of the social and/or financial elite. Elizabeth Taylor wishes to leave her enormously wealthy husband Richard Burton in favor of playboy Louis Jourdan. Peripatetic European film producer Orson Welles is hoping to escape London with his newest protegee Elsa Martinelli in order to avoid paying his income tax. Australian businessman Rod Taylor, accompanied by his devoted (and adoring) secretary Maggie Smith, is anxious to head to New York to stave off a hostile takeover of his firm. And impoverished aristocrat Margaret Rutherford (who won an Oscar for her performance) would rather not go to Florida to accept a job as a social arbiter, but the wolf must be kept from the door. Before the fog disperses, you can be sure that at least one of the many plotlines will intersect with another. David Frost, in a tiny part as a reporter, was fond of recalling in later years that, while the major stars of The VIPS were introduced in the opening titles with animated limousines, he was consigned a tiny Volkswagen; alas, no such cartoon joke appears in the film, though on occasion the actors-particularly Mr. Welles-behave as though they were cartoons. Mercilessly skewered by the critics, The VIPS was a winner at the box-office, due in great part to the Cleopatra-inspired publicity concerning the top-billed Liz Taylor and Dick Burton. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide