Carole Laure Movies

In this martial arts movie set in Madrid, the abused children of a drug smuggler try to frame the owner of a Madrid martial arts school. A housewife then begins fighting on his behalf. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

This is a rather complex thriller that fails to deliver very much suspense or fear, in spite of the requisite shock scenes and mystery over who is perpetrating them. The story opens with a pending marriage, tragically aborted when the groom dies under suspicious circumstances, and continues several years later when Nathalie (Carole Laure), a single mother, receives "breather" phone calls and finds the bloody heart of an animal on her car seat. That is followed by another such donation sent to her workplace and labeled as the heart of her little daughter. Although gruesome, these incidents alone are not enough to create an atmosphere of foreboding, anxiety, or apprehension -- as Nathalie seems just a few steps from unconcerned. If she is not affected, any tension created by the scenario is diffused, leaving the audience in neutral. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Like his WR: Mysteries of the Organism, Dusan Makavejev's controversial 1974 feature Sweet Movie is firmly rooted in the principles of psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich. In cinematic terms, this means bombarding the audience with an onset of imagery so visceral, disgusting and repellent that it "awakens" the viewer in a Brechtian manner by "short-circuiting" the audience's reactions. Sweet Movie interweaves two narratives. One begins with a trip to the "Miss World Virginity Contest," whose winner, Miss Monde 1984 (Carole Laure) is auctioned off to Mr. Kapital (Animal House's John Vernon), a Texas oil billionaire with an odd perversion. Instead of deflowering her on her wedding night, he sterilizes the terrified girl's body with rubbing alcohol and showers her in urine with his massive gold-plated penis, while an audience watches bemusedly through his bedroom window. She later escapes from her bridegroom, in a suitcase, and winds up at a wild Viennese commune whose participants indulge in public defecation and a food orgy that wraps with a massive display of gurgling, yakking, and vomiting. At the tale's conclusion, Miss Monde shoots a television commercial that involves writhing nude in a giant vat of chocolate, with which she is completely drenched from head to toe, as the cameras roll. The second story involves a woman, Anna Planeta (Anna Prucnal) piloting a candy-filled boat down a river, with a massive papier-mache head of Lenin on the prow and a lover in-tow who is a refugee from the Battleship Potemkin. She eventually does a seductive striptease and seduces a pack of children, then makes love to her paramour in a vat of sugar and stabs him through the heart. Throughout the film, Makavejev includes shock cuts to Nazi autopsy footage and medical experimentation footage, some of which involves physical abuse of infants under the guise of "baby gymnastics." Although it has its admirers, Sweet Movie is something of an acquired taste. And that's putting it kindly. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

This low-grade thriller centers around Frank Waite (Art Hindle), a sports-car salesman who is suddenly mean-tempered when his wife Lee (Shannon Tweed) becomes turned off by sex, and Anouk Van Derlin, the sex therapist they decide to see (Carole Laure). As Anouk starts to bring out the suppressed sexual fantasies of the couple, their sex life is much better -- but both Lee and Frank are not completely at ease with their new, unrestrained relationship. In the meantime, a series of stabbings occurs in the city that may or may not be related to a transvestite neighbor of the Waites. But as the murders continue, some of the victims turn out to be friends or acquaintances of the couple -- and the guessing game to identify the real killer begins. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

John Huston directed this exciting World War II action film, which culminates in a rousing soccer game. In a German prisoner of war camp, Major Karl von Steiner (Max Von Sydow), the camp commander, once a member of the German national soccer team, decides to put together a soccer match between a team of Allied prisoners, led by Captain John Colby (Michael Caine), a former English international soccer player. The game is to be played in Colombes Stadium in Paris and exploited for maximum propaganda effect by the Nazi publicity machine. Robert Hatch (Sylvester Stallone) is enlisted to assist the Allied prisoners to train for the event. But, in fact, the Allies are planning a risky escape during the soccer match. Famed Brazilian soccer great Pele makes an appearance in the film, along with Bobby Moore, the captain of Britain's 1966 World Cup champions, and Argentine soccer star Osvaldo Ardiles. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi