Daniel Martin Movies

Following the international success of her first film Oblie-moi (1994) for which she was also the co-writer, Noémi Lvovsky has concentrated mostly on screenwriting until Petites, a "buddy film" for girls. Emilie, Stella, Ines and Marion come from different social backgrounds but share the same problems. Their escape is the group. As they grow older and get attracted to the opposite sex, each one picks out an ideal but inaccessible fiancé, chosen from the older boys at school. Life has its twists and turns, but the girls know that they will never be separated. A tender approach to the feelings of young women as only a woman can truly know, Petites is about the bittersweet experiences of growing up in a world which is not always friendly. The film is also a good representative of the New French Cinema by one of its several women directors. Petites was screened in the Spotlight on the New French Cinema section of the Thessaloniki Film Festival, 1998. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, Rovi

This is a remake of the 1982 film Savannah Smiles. Colin (Jacques Higelen) and Mailland (Daniel Martin) are small-time crooks on the run who are surprised to find the seven-year-old runaway Savannah (Elodie Gautier) is along for the ride. The police and her parents fear she has been kidnapped, and a massive manhunt is launched with orders to shoot to kill the alleged perpetrators. The lovable little girl soon melts the hearts of the crooks, as the trio enjoy an unlikely but sentimental friendship. The late Marcel Bozzuffi makes his last screen appearance as Coplan, the confident cop in charge of recovering Savannah. Rene Feret plays Savannah's father, a hypocritical politician. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

Sky diver Clare (Ellen Barkin) wakes up disheveled and almost naked in Spain. She has left her husband Del (Martin Sheen) in Death Valley in order to find her former lover Augustine (Gabriel Byrne). She may have committed a murder, or it may all be fantasy. This film, directed by Mary Lambert is odd, confusing and sometimes downright laughable, full of preposterous plot twists and ridiculous symbolism. The plot makes little sense, and Lambert, while showing great visual style, has little concern for character or plot. It is never clear whether the mysterious visions that Claire experiences are memories or simply plot devices, and Clare's continued pursuit by a taxi driver with rusty teeth who keeps trying to rape her is ludicrous. Good performances by Barkin and Byrne, and a nice musical score by Miles Davis do nothing to save this pretentious, silly film. ~ Linda Rasmussen, Rovi

Themes long forbidden in Spain under the Franco dictatorship began to be explored in the years just following his demise. In this 1976 film, an unhappy and very effeminate man (played by a woman, Victoria Abril), experiences one difficulty after another. As a boy in Cataluña, his father attempts to teach him to "be a man." These lessons include taking him to a big-city whorehouse to have sex. At the bordello, he successfully avoids having sex with a woman, but when he sees a transvestite revue which culminates in the actors revealing their actual genitalia, he is fascinated. He runs away from home, learns to be a hairdresser, and develops a transvestite act of his own. After numerous love affairs with men, he eventually realizes his transsexual nature and goes to another country to have a sex-change operation. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Spanish softcore porn filmmaker Jorge Luís Gigó Aznar directs the 1975 Eurocult horror trash film La Perversa Caricia de Satán (released in the U.S. with the English-language title Devil's Kiss) under the pseudonym of Georges Gigo. Silvia Solar plays a medium who conducts occult experiments with a telepathic doctor (Olivier Mathot). While in the cellar of an old castle, they create a zombie by reviving a dead guy with the soul of Satan. The zombie goes around and kills everyone, thereby creating opportunities for nudity. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi

This Yukon adventure is yet another telling of Jack London's tale of a prospector and his loyal sled dog as they battle avaricious villains during their search for gold. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

This internationally produced adaptation of Anna Sewell's Black Beauty is essentially a vehicle for Oliver star Mark Lester. The young Lester spends most of the film trying to reclaim his beautiful black horse, which passes through several hands over the course of 90 minutes. All the setpieces of the Sewell original are in attendance, including the showstopping "burning barn" sequence. Walter Slezak is the only truly recognizable actor in the film outside of Lester. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Gino (Jean Servais) breaks out of jail and visits his friend Tony (Gary Lockwood) with a plan to rob an armored car. Although both men are motivated by greed, Tony says no to the risky proposition. When Gino is killed by some trigger-happy cops, Tony decides to avenge his death by going ahead with the robbery. Tony, a Vegas blackjack dealer, takes up with Ann (Elke Sommer), the private secretary of Shorsky (Lee J. Cobb), the owner of the armored-car company. With the help of some inside information from Ann, Tony and his henchmen pull off the heist, and the car seems to disappear in the desert. Treasury agent Douglas (Jack Palance) is called in to solve the mystery of the vanishing truck. As he closes in, the gang gets nervous when they can't open up the truck and everyone pulls out their guns in an unbridled display of greed and paranoia. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

Thora (Essy Persson) and Kress (John Karelsen) are superior beings from another planet who find themselves marooned on the moon. A U.S. space mission lead by Major Perry Rodan (Lang Jeffries) rescues the couple. Kress is suffering from an unknown ailment, and a medical examination reveals he has leukemia. The rescue team secretly brings the ailing alien to an African physician who specializes in blood disorders. Soon word gets around about the aliens, causing a full-scale search for the rescue team and the two space cadets. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

The Man Called Gringo (Sie Nannten ihn Gringo) is a German western, with the Alps standing in for the Rockies. Crooked lawyer Helmut Schmidt makes it his mission in life to destroy an old rancher. Schmidt hires Gringo (Dan Martin), a rootless soldier of fortune, to either drive the rancher off his property or kill him. But Gringo turns out to be the rancher's long-long illegitimate son. The whole mess is solved by the deux-ex-machina appearance of a shadowy stranger. Alexandra Stewart, George Gotz and Peter Tordy costar in this psychological oater. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this adaptation of James Fenimore Cooper's Last of the Mohicans, a daring rescue is planned. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

By the time Sergio Leone made this film, Italians had already produced about 20 films ironically labelled "spaghetti westerns." Leone approached the genre with great love and humor. Although the plot was admittedly borrowed from Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961), Leone managed to create a work of his own that would serve as a model for many films to come. Clint Eastwood plays a cynical gunfighter who comes to a small border town and offers his services to two rivaling gangs. Neither gang is aware of his double play, and each thinks it is using him, but the stranger will outwit them both. The picture was the first installment in a cycle commonly known as the "Dollars" trilogy. Later, United Artists, who distributed it in the U.S., coined another term for it: the "Man With No Name" trilogy. While not as impressive as its follow-ups For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966), A Fistful of Dollars contains all of Leone's eventual trademarks: taciturn characters, precise framing, extreme close-ups, and the haunting music of Ennio Morricone. Not released in the U.S. until 1967 due to copyright problems, the film was decisive in both Clint Eastwood's career and the recognition of the Italian western. ~ Yuri German, Rovi