Louis Jourdan Movies

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

Based on a Jules Verne tale about a make-believe, 19th-century country in the throes of revolution, this routine costume drama by Georges Lampin has a slight storyline about Mathias (Louis Jourdan), a noble count whose innate sensibilities lead him to side with the rebelling masses and intellectuals in the nation. His problem is that his daughter has fallen in love with the leader of the military regime, causing an understandable split in the family. Mathias is then betrayed by some supposed friends, and his situation as well as that of the revolution reach a crisis point. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

This French/Italian sword 'n' sandal effort is set in the Rome of 476 BC. The Eternal City is threatened with invasion from the Etruscans, with soldier-of-fortune Louis Jourdan in the vanguard. When offered a truce, Jourdan demands that the Romans offer hostages as a sign of good faith. He is especially interested in making the acquaintance of Sylvia Sims, the militaristic leader of a group of female warriors (the "Amazons" of the title). As the film hastens to its conclusion, we learn that Jourdan and Syms are the only honorable people around; with plenty of treachery and back-stabbing in both the Roman and Estrucan camps, it's a wonder if anyone will be left standing for the final battle scenes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Claude Autant-Lara's 1961 Count of Monte Cristo is one of the most faithful screen versions of the evergreen Alexandre Dumas story -- and one of the most compelling, thanks to the director's ability to squeeze the last drop of romanticism out of the original. While Louis Jourdan seems ill at ease as the younger Edmond Dantes, he is ideally suited for the film's later scenes, when the older, sadder, and wiser Dantes begins exacting revenge upon those who had him condemned to prison. Honoring the spirit of the original, Autant-Lara avoids inserting the leftist proselytizing which weighed down many of his later films. To perk up the pace and ensure double-bill bookings, the American distributor of Count of Monte Cristo removed 90 minutes from the film's 3-hour length. This was the seventh movie adaptation of the Dumas classic, which was first filmed by Hobart Bosworth in 1912. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A star-studded cast enlivens this glossy '50s soap opera, based on a novel by Rona Jaffe. The action unfolds at the Gotham-based Fabian Publishing, where numerous women work as typists under the aegis of power-wielding, shark-like editor Amanda Farrow (Joan Crawford). Farrow has achieved wealth and success, but is far from idolized by her underlings, who understand clearly that their boss has chalked up all of her accomplishments at the expense of a satisfying personal life. Caroline Bender (Hope Lange) is a recent graduate of a prestigious women's college whose sole desire in life is to marry her college sweetheart Eddie (Brett Halsey; she admits openly that she cares little for power, ambition or career advancement. She gets a job in the secretarial pool of Fabian Publishing and soon takes an apartment with some female co-workers. Caroline quickly realizes that she has a catbird seat to witness the romantic entanglements and office politics of Fabian's many female employees. Farrow is having an affair with a mysterious married man, and Caroline's roommates have tales of their own to tell: April (Diane Baker) has become pregnant by the unscrupulous Dexter (Robert Evans), who suggests she have an abortion; and Gregg (Suzy Parker) has become involved with smooth-talking Broadway director David Wilder Savage (Louis Jourdan), not the most faithful man in the world. Robert Evans's career as an actor came to an end after this film, and he later enjoyed success as a studio head at Paramount Pictures in the 1970s, supervising The Godfather, and serving as producer of such films as Chinatown and Marathon Man. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Originally titled Mariee est trop belle, this Brigitte Bardot romp is better known as The Bride is Much Too Beautiful. BB plays an innocent country lass who heads for Paris in hopes of becoming a model. This she does, not by posing in the nude but by showing off wedding frocks. Bardot falls in love with magazine editor Louis Jourdan, but he falls to respond until she takes drastic action-which means of course, removing most of her outer garments. Costar Micheline Presle isn't given much to do: this is Bardot's film all the way (in every sense of that phrase). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this frothy romantic comedy, the lovely Brigitte Bardot plays Chouchou, a successful model. Chouchou is single but hoping to change that soon; she's become infatuated with Michel (Louis Jordan), the editor of a fashion magazine, but Michel, apparently unaware of an opportunity when it presents itself, seems unaware of her interest in him. The harder Chouchou tries to make herself noticed, the less Michel seems to understand, until she takes drastic measures by making him chase her though the woods while she wears sheer lingerie which leaves little to the imagination. La Mariée est trop belle was one of a number of light comedies starring Brigitte Bardot which arrived in American theaters after the international success of ... And God Created Woman. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Frances Howard starred as Princess Alexandria in the 1925 silent version of Ferenc Molnar's play The Swan; Lillian Gish assumed the role in the 1930 talkie version. The third and final adaptation starred Grace Kelly, who had one slight advantage over her predecessors; she would soon become a real princess instead of a make-believe one. And don't think that MGM, knowing full well that Grace would retire from moviemaking upon ascending the throne of Monaco, didn't carefully select the timeworn Molnar play for the express purpose of extra publicity. Outside of its mercenary considerations, The Swan is an enjoyable bittersweet tale of a princess who falls in love with her handsome tutor (Louis Jourdan), only to be required to give him up in favor of an arranged marriage of state. The nicest element of the story is that the prince to whom Kelly is engaged, as played by Alec Guinness, is a decent sort, who voluntarily asks for the princess' hand instead of forcing the issue. Of course, the issue has been forced upon him when he realizes the depth of the love Kelly harbors for her tutor. It may well be that this version of The Swan will be the last; on the other hand, who'd a' thunk that someone would want to make Sabrina again in 1995? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Adapted by playwright John Patrick from a novel by famed globetrotter/filmmaker John H. Secondari, Three Coins in the Fountain offers the splendors of Rome in Technicolor, CinemaScope and Stereophonic Sounds. For all its lovely picture-postcard images, the film is at base a reworking of 20th Century-Fox' favorite plotline: three pretty girls on the prowl for husbands. The three lovelies, who toss their coins in the Trevi fountain and wish for romance, include Dorothy McGuire, Jean Peters and Maggie McNamara. Before the film is over, secretary McGuire has wooed her boss, Clifton Webb, Peters has won the heart of a co-worker Italian translator Rossano Brazzi (despite being fired, in the process, for having an office romance); and McNamara finds happiness with prince Louis Jourdan. Three Coins in the Fountain won two Academy Awards: "Best Color Cinematography" (Milton Krasner), and "Best Song" (written by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen, and sung in the pre-credits sequence by an uncredited Frank Sinatra). The film was remade in 1965 as The Pleasure Seekers, and also served as the basis for a never-sold TV pilot starring Yvonne Craig, Cynthia Pepper and Joanna Moore. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide