Bernard Lajarrige Movies
- 1995
This French film is an old-fashioned melodrama with a love triangle, a talented starlet, and a duel. It is set in 1930 when talking films were just coming into vogue and threatening to overshadow theatrical plays. The film features cameos by famed French actors of that time period. Victor Derval is returning home after a performance when he is hailed by Lisa, a young Hungarian woman. Lisa's motives are mysterious; is she simply a star-struck peasant girl, or an ambitious, manipulative aspiring star? Derval is taken with her, and she soon finds herself Derval's personal secretary and is to move into his home where his son Paul, an aspiring writer/revolutionary, also lives. Both men fall for Lisa, who has already fallen in love with the limelight. She will eventually get her wish, but not without paying a price. Though generally beloved by all Parisians, Victor Derval has one detractor, playwright Coste who hates that Derval freely edits his work on stage. Paul, enraged at his father decides to plot revenge, but cannot decide whether he should kill his father or design something a little more creative. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Philippe Noiret, Jacques Roman, (more)
Claude Chabrol's Violette was based on the true story of 19-year-old Violette Noziere, who in the 1930s was tried and convicted for the poisoning of her father and the attempted murder of her mother. As played by Isabelle Huppert (who won several awards for her performance), Violette is a thrill-seeking girl who falls for a no-good slug from the slums of Paris. Anxious to give money to her lover, Violette hatches the patricide scheme in order to inherit her father's fortune. But Violette's mother, played as an deglamorized drudge by the otherwise stunning Stephane Audran, is not so easily disposed of; it is her testimony that condemns Violette, first to the guillotine, then to a commuted life sentence. In emulation of his idol Alfred Hitchcock, director Chabrol manages to evoke a measure of sympathy and audience identification for his thoroughly dislikable leading character. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Isabelle Huppert, Jean Carmet, (more)
- 1977
Madame Rosa (Simone Signoret) is an aging former prostitute who, in her dotage, makes a living by caring for the children of other prostitutes in Paris' Arab community. Haunted by memories of her experiences in a Nazi concentration camp, Rosa is seized with the notion that the Gestapo is still after her. She thus begs one of her young charges (Samy Ben Youb) not to give away her "hiding place." Madame Rosa was based on Momo, a novel by one Emile Ajar (better known as Romaine Gary). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Simone Signoret, Claude Dauphin, (more)
- 1977
Le Crabe Tambour (The Crab Drum) stars Jacques Perrin as the title character. An officer in the French navy, Perrin has earned his nickname through his habit of beating his chest a la King Kong after consuming a crab dinner. Stories of this eccentric but courageous warrior remain in circulation long after his involvement in the Indochinese and Algerian wars. Two of his former comrades in arms, Jean Rochefort and Claude Rich, have long suffered guilt pangs for not having stood by "Le Crabe Tambour" when he needed them most. Accompanied by a third veteran, Jacques Dufilho, the men decide to stage a reunion with the dying Perrin. This triangular character study (the title character is seen only in flashback) won several French film industry awards when it was originally released in 1977; still, it didn't pick up a US distributor until 1984. Director Pierre Schoendoerffer co-adapted the screenplay for Le Crabe Tambour from his own novel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean Rochefort, Claude Rich, (more)
The humanistic actions of Philippe D'Orleans, the cultured gentle regent to young Louis the XV in pre-revolutionary France (1719) are chronicled in this French costumer. Though the regent endeavors to keep his subjects cultured and happy to stop the peasants from rising up, he knows he has no real royal authority. To assist, D'Orleans enlisted the aid of a priest, who unfortunately cared nothing for his God, nor anyone but himself. The regent becomes distraught after his daughter, with whom he has been accused of committing incest, dies. His natural idealism is also shaken when he must execute a band of revolutionaries. True joy will only be found when the peasants successfully overthrow the aristocrats who held them down so long. The film's soundtrack features the music of the real Phillippe D'Orleans. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Philippe Noiret, Jean Rochefort, (more)
- 1969
French New Wave filmmaker Agnes Varda writes and directs the intellectual drama Les Creatures. Michel Piccoli plays a novelist who gets in a severe car accident. He is injured and his wife (Catherine Deneuve) is rendered mute. They move to a small village on an island in order to recuperate, and for the husband to write his novel. He uses characters based on the townsfolk on the island. He meets a young man (Jacques Charrier) who is building a machine. They play chess and engage in a violent fight. The wife gives birth and regains her speech, and it is apparent that the young man only existed in the husband's imagination. The conclusion involves a futher distortion of fantasy and reality as the writer finishes his novel. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Piccoli, Catherine Deneuve, (more)
- 1968
This romantic tragedy concerns the Archduke Rudolf (Omar Sharif) and his mistress, the Baroness Maria Vetsera (Catherine Deneuve), and their untimely demise at Mayerling, the sight of the Austrian royal family's hunting lodge. Rudolf verbally spars with his father Emperor Franz-Josef (James Mason) about wanting to implement progressive policies for his country. Ava Gardner plays his mother Empress Elizabeth. Rudolf also contends with the fallout from a loveless marriage with Princess Stephanie (Andrea Parisy). Respectful of the centuries-old Hapsburg family rule over Austria, Rudolf soon feels he is a man born at the wrong time in a country that will not realize the need for social reform. The Prince of Wales (James Robertson-Justice), later to become Britain's King Edward VII, provides the only comic relief with his dialogue. The deaths remain a mystery, but director Terence Young suggests the two lovers made a suicide pact when they decided they could not live in a world without love where the prospects for peace were dubious at best. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Omar Sharif, Catherine Deneuve, (more)
In this French comedy, one little white lie leads to a series of whoppers as a Frenchman visiting London soon discovers. The French fellow has gone to London with his friends to catch a soccer match. He then must go to the dentist where, just for fun, he puts on a British policeman's uniform. Dressed as a bobby, he scares away some robbers. Unfortunately, he cannot tell them the truth because he is embarrassed to open his mouth and reveal the two teeth he lost at the soccer match. A chase ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
John Frankenheimer directs Burt Lancaster in the tense spy thriller The Train. Lancaster plays Labiche, a French railway inspector. Allied forces are threatening to liberate Paris, so Col. Franz von Waldheim (Paul Scofield) is ordered to move the priceless works of art from the Jeu de Paume Museum to the fatherland. The head of the museum (Suzanne Flon) attempts to convince Labiche that he should sabotage the train on which they are transporting the art. Labiche is more focused on destroying a trainload of German weapons. After his friend is killed trying to stop the train with the art, and after a consciousness-raising conversation with a hotel owner (Jeanne Moreau), Labiche resolves to save the antiquities. Lancaster and Frankenheimer had worked together previously on both Birdman of Alcatraz and Seven Days in May. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Burt Lancaster, Paul Scofield, (more)
- 1964
Henri (Robert Dhery) joins a group of rowdy soccer fans who travel from France to London two days before he is supposed to be married, and he goes to the dentist after his two front teeth are knocked out in a melee with rival fans. Sight gags include a busload of drunken fans trying to evade the police in a rare working combination of Gallic and British humor. Diana Dors appears as herself in this feature directed and co-written by Dhery. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Dhéry, Colette Brosset, (more)
- 1962
Holmes and Watson are again after Moriarty but this time Scotland Yard for some reason does not even suspect that he's the one who wants to get the necklace stolen from Cleopatra's tomb. Doesn't really hold together like most of the Holmes/Watson movies and is a rather odd interpretation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's story. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Christopher Lee
- 1961
This modest, unpretentious French film is a streamlined version of the true story previously cinematized as The Song of Bernadette (1943) Daniele Ajort plays the simple 19th-century French peasant girl who insists that she has experienced a vision of the Virgin Mary. Once this sighting becomes common knowledge, Bernadette's very existence becomes a religious and political hot potato. Thousands of people flock to the grotto at Lourdes where Bernadette claims she has seen the Holy Mother, believing that the waters therein contain recuperative powers. Bernadette dies under a cloud of controversy, but is ultimately elevated to sainthood by the Vatican. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1960
This 105-minute religious drama is based on the life of Saint Bernadette Soubirous, the woman who at the age of fourteen -- in February and March of 1858, had a total of eighteen visions of the Virgin Mary. Bernadette (played by Daniele Ajoret) was told to go to a specific grotto. She left with 300,000 people joining her in this pilgrimage and when at the grotto, the Virgin Mary appeared to tell her to dig by a large rock. She did as instructed, and a spring gushed forth that is still visited today by those seeking to be healed -- at Lourdes. Soubirous goes on to a life of contemplation but is plagued by sickness and succumbs at the age of thirty-five, a saintly legend in her own time. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Daniele Ajoret, Bernard Lajarrige, (more)
- 1959
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
- Starring:
- Pascale Petit, Micheline Presle, (more)
- 1959
An off-beat, uneven tale about a man intent on suicide and the three people who try to talk him out of it, Pantalaskas stars American Carl Studer in the title role of the morose, would-be suicide. Set in Paris and taking place over an entire night, the story has a complication in that the trio who want to prevent the suicide do not speak the man's language -- he is Lithuanian and speaks no French. So the protagonists comb the underbelly of a nighttime Paris, looking high and low but mostly low for anyone who speaks Lithuanian. Depending mainly on dialogue for its impact, the verbose drama reveals how the protagonists undergo a transformation as the night wears on. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Carl Studer, Albert Remy, (more)
- 1959
In this drama, a Parisian vagabond decides to get himself arrested so he can spend the winter in a warm, cozy jail. Unfortunately his attempts fail until his pal shows him how to steal purebred dogs and then bring them back for a reward. He does well, and decides to winter in the Riviera, but first he must figure out how to keep from getting arrested since another "pal" has ratted on him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean Gabin, Darry Cowl, (more)
- 1959
Danielle Darrieux stars in this Belgian chiller as a songstress whose obsessively jealous husband suddenly dies. Feeling free for the first time in years, Darrieux inaugurates a romance with Michel Auclair. But even now she is the victim of her husband's omnipresence; evidently returning from the grave, the dead man haunts both Darrieux and her new lover. If you've seen Diabolique, you may catch on to a few of this film's many plot twists. Oddly, Murder at 45 R.P.M (produced in 1960, released in the US five years later) is frequently absent from the published resumes of both Danielle Darrieux and Michel Auclair. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Danielle Darrieux, Michel Auclair, (more)
- 1956
The French/Italian Four Bags Full stars Jean Gabin as an aging artist, ever on the prowl for excitement. The time is World War II, and the place is occupied France. Timorous cab driver Gabin finagles Bourvil into transporting four suitcases full of precious pork through Paris, under the noses of the Nazi officials. While the film is not technically a comedy, there are several nervously amusing moments as the mismatched Gabin and Bourvil wend their way across the City of Light. Adapted from a novel by Marcel Ayme, Four Bags Full was originally released as La Traversee de Paris. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bourvil, Jean Gabin, (more)
- 1952
It all begins when astronomer Charles (Michel Simon) spots a heretofore undiscovered exploding star while peering through his telescope. While calling his colleagues with the news, Charles inadvertently eavesdrops on a young girl, threatening suicide. In the interests of humanity, Charles decides to try to prevent this tragedy, thereby getting himself entangled with a narcotics ring and several nubile French chorines. Brigitte Aubry plays the would-be suicide with a sharp sense of comic timing (yes, this is a comedy), while comedian Robert Lamoreaux offers a virtual reenactment of his Parisian nightclub routine. English-language prints of Femmes de Paris were purged of the original's bare-bosom shots. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Simon, Henri Genes, (more)
- 1952
A Simple Case of Money (originally released in 1950 as Millionaires d'un Jour) is set in motion when a greenhorn reporter (Bernard Lajarrige) carelessly prints the wrong winning number in the French national lottery. As the reporter and his boss (Leon Bellieres) defend themselves in court, they are confronted with several people whose lives were profoundly affected by the error. Gradually, these "victims" come to realize that they are far better off as losers than they ever would have been as winners. This is especially true of estranged husband and wife Pierre (Jean Brochard) and Helene Berger (Gaby Morlay), whose tattered marriage is patched together by the experience. Simple Case of Money is most effective as a character study, and least effective as a satire of provincial manners and mores. Coming off best in the large cast is Pierre Laquey as a lovably antisocial centenarian. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pierre Brasseur, Ginette Leclerc, (more)
- 1952
Director René Clair insisted that his 1952 production Beauties of the Night (Les Belles du Nuit) was intended as a comic variation on Griffith's multipart Intolerance (1916). The Clair film deals with a disillusioned music teacher (Gérard Philipe) who dreams of the beautiful women of history, envisioning himself as the central male figure in each dream. The imaginary ladies (including such internationally famous lovelies as Martine Carol and Gina Lollobrigida) begin converging on the hero all at once, much to the delight of both Philipe and the audience. At several junctures, Clair revives a technique from his earliest talkies by having the characters sing their lines and thoughts rather than speaking them. These treasured musical moments are somewhat dissipated when Beauties of the Night is seen in an edited, redubbed American print -- which also "fudges" the film's notorious Gina Lollobrigida nude scene. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Philipe, Martine Carol, (more)
- 1951
Massacre en Dentelles (Massacre in Lace) concerns a devil-may-care reporter named George (Raymond Rouleau). Sent to Venice to get the goods on a gang of counterfeiters, George would much rather enjoy the city's many creature comforts. He finally gets down to work when he discovers a corpse, the first of many to dot the Venetian landscape in this airy little thriller. Theresa (Anne Vernon) is but one of the many ladies who melt like butter when Our Hero saunters into view--but is she to be trusted? At 105 minutes, Massacre en Dentelles is a smidgen too long for its own good. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Raymond Rouleau, Anne Vernon, (more)
