Serge Marquand Movies

Iconoclastic film director Samuel Fuller spent decades nurturing his dream project, a movie about his experiences in the Army's First Infantry Division during World War II, but it wasn't until 1979 that he was able to finally bring the picture before the cameras. Unfortunately, Fuller was forced by his producers to work with a scaled-down budget, and he did not have final cut on the film; after his first rough cut ran nearly four-and-a-half hours, the studio took over editing on the project, and Fuller was vocally unhappy with the final results. In 2003, critic and film historian Richard Schickel initiated an effort to restore The Big Red One to a form that more closely resembled Fuller's original vision; using a large cache of newly discovered footage and the director's shooting script as a guide, the 113-minute theatrical version was expanded to 158 minutes, adding depth and detail to Fuller's sweeping and episodic tale of a hard-as-nails sergeant (Lee Marvin) and four inexperienced recruits under his command (Mark Hamill, Robert Carradine, Bobby Di Cicco, and Kelly Ward) as they battle their way across Africa to Europe between 1942 and 1945. Schickel's reconstruction received enthusiastic reviews when it went into limited release in the fall of 2004. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Originally shown on television in two parts, the second of which takes place after WWII. Surviving escapee Major John Dodge (Christopher Reeve) is sent back to Germany by Winston Churchill to capture the Gestapo officer who ordered the machine-gunning of 50 of the captured escapees, in direct defiance of the Geneva convention. Donald Pleasance, one of the "good guys" in the original, plays the Nazi villain in the new version. Filmed in Yugoslavia, Great Escape II: The Untold Story was originally telecast November 6 and 7, 1988. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Yet another incarnation of Mary Shelley's 1818 Frankenstein, this uneven spoof by Alain Jessua casts Victor Frankenstein as a cybernetics wizard who constructs his monster with a notable lack of aesthetic sense but invests him with great microprocessors, and the newly-minted ogre finds life rather lonely until he sees Frankenstein's lover and is smitten. In the meantime, the warped doctor has also created a lithesome female out of the sundry body parts of slain go-go dancers who went-went, and he falls in love with his creation. The original odd couples then flounder a little as director Jessua loses his grip on the story, and the cybernetic protagonist heads for Frankenstein's castle. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

No relation to the 1949 Somerset Maugham "omnibus" film of the same name, 1981's Quartet is based on the roman a clef by Jean Rhys. Though the names are changed, it is clearly the story of Rhys' romance with Ford Maddox Ford in 1920s Paris. The titular quartet consists of novelist Isabelle Adjani, her Polish husband Anthony Higgins, wealthy philanderer Alan Bates and Bates' artist wife Maggie Smith. Though she's been indulgent of Higgins's past indiscretions, Smith isn't keen on her husband carrying on an affair with Adjani under their own roof. Meanwhile, Higgins sits in prison, jailed for his various petty thefts. Once Higgins is released, he learns about the Bates-Adjani-Smith contretemps. When the dust settles, it is Adjani who suffers the most. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Le Soleil en Face is a somewhat glib drama about a serious matter -- death. In this case, the death of a writer. Marat (Jean-Pierre Cassel) is a retired novelist living in ease and comfort in his own villa in southern Portugal. His writing has essentially dried up, but he has a good life with his wife Genevieve (Stephane Audran) and two attractive nieces who take care of him -- one is actually his lover. This idyll crashes to the ground when Genevieve finds out that Marat has incurable cancer, and at first, she tries to keep the diagnosis a secret but is not successful. The results are disastrous. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this modern retelling of the classic Dangerous Liaisons, a virtuous young woman becomes the target of the schemes of an amoral womanizer who is in the habit of wooing women and killing their lovers and husbands in duels. When she finally succumbs to him, she discovers his true nature, and her newly awakened joy in passion turns to dust. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

While on their second honeymoon, a long-married couple discuss the past and are surprised to discover their separate infidelities but decide to stick with their marriage. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

When Carolina (Anicee Alvina), the daughter of wealthy banker Georges de Saxe (Philippe Noiret), is reported kidnapped, it is upsetting to him even though he knows it isn't true. The kidnappers have taken the wrong person. The banker hires Frantz (Jean-Louis Trintignant) a disheveled, seedy detective to find his daughter and hide her safely away. She soon finds herself in a fantasyland whorehouse, where all kinds of extreme perversions are routinely practiced. There, a near-double of her father whips and then seduces her. Eventually, she and the private eye escape or leave, having extorted the kidnapping money from the girl's father. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

At the beginning of World War II, while the Germans entered France from the north, many people had reason to believe that the Germans would not treat them kindly, and they fled by train to the south. This French film tells the story of a few of them. Because they were fleeing the best-organized bureaucrats in the world, many of them chose to flee in freight cars, unseen and unnoted. When Meyereu (Jean-Louis Trintignant) is separated from his wife during the escape, he allows a Jewish girl (Romy Schneider) to pose as his wife. As the deception continues, they come to care for each other, but she discreetly disappears when his real wife turns up. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

The very modest lawyer (Jean-Louis Trintignant) in this case of murder finds much more than he is looking for and then must decide what to do with the unwelcome information. He is defending a woman who is accused of killing her lover. It turns out that the lover was actually killed during a holdup, and was a member of a gang which did bullying favors for local politicians; and the trail doesn't end there. This French film is directed by Trintignant's wife, Nadine. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

French filmmaker Nadine Trintignant writes and directs the 1971 drama Ça N'Arrive Qu'Aux Autres (It Only Happens to Others), based on her real-life experiences with actor husband Jean-Louis Trintignant. Catherine (Catherine Deneuve) and Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni) lose their baby daughter Camille to a deadly illness. In order to mourn their loss, they shut themselves off from the world by hiding in their apartment. After weeks of seclusion, Marcello decides to break their isolation. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

This spaghetti western features hippie outlaws battling French singer Hallyday. ~ All Movie Guide

Released in Europe as Histoires Extraordinaires and Tre Passi Nel Delirio, this is a portmanteau picture, comprised of three supernatural playlets based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe. "Metzengerstein," directed by Roger Vadim, stars the director's then-wife Jane Fonda as a medieval woman prone to acts of vengeance. Her brother Peter Fonda is somewhat perversely cast as her cousin, for whom she holds incestuous yearnings. When he gives her the cold shoulder, she spitefully sets fire to his stable of horses. He is himself killed in the blaze, but it seems that he has been reincarnated as a horse. In "William Wilson," directed by Louis Malle, a sadistic Austrian officer (Alain Delon) commits various S&M misdeeds upon a variety of victims, including a woman (Brigitte Bardot) with whom he plays cards. The officer himself comes to grief when he finds that the Church will not allow him to say an act of contrition. And "Never Bet Your Head," directed by Federico Fellini, updates the Poe original by casting Terence Stamp as a self-indulgent movie star. Driving drunk one evening, the actor literally bets his head that he can escape a potentially fatal accident. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide