Eddy Mitchell Movies

With his Springtime in Paris, long-inactive French helmer Jacques Bral both resuscitates and pays homage to the classic European caper film, crafting a small, occasionally humorous crime thriller in the mold of Rififi and Bob le flambeur, that focuses almost entirely on the aftermath of a crime in lieu of the heist itself. The film opens with thief-turned-convict Georges (Eddy Mitchell) released from prison after a five year stint, and dragged immediately back into the underworld by several nefarious pals. He teams up with fellow thief Pierrot (Sagamore Stevenin) to lift a bejeweled necklace from a safe in a private residence. The operation progresses smoothly; the aftermath turns deadly. Several in-the-know parties make the foolish decision to open their traps, which inadvertently pulls the cops in; soon after, events begin to spiral rapidly out of control. From there, Bral packs in a series of unforeseeable twists, turns, and double-crosses to keep the viewer in a permanent state of suspense. Pascale Arbillot and Pierre Santini co-star; Bral authored the original script. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

French-born, UCLA-trained screenwriter Jean-Yves Pitoun made his directorial debut with this French comedy in which self-taught cook Lorenzo, aka Loren (Jason Lee) is discharged from the U.S. Navy after hitting a superior who accused him of serving "sissy food" to the Admiral's guests. Back in Brooklyn, Loren works at his Italian-Irish family's pizza parlor and then heads for France to study with his idol, chef Louis Boyer (Eddy Mitchell). After the death of his wife, Boyer raised his daughter Gabrielle (Irene Jacob), now a successful restaurant architect engaged to physician Vincent (Thibault de Montalembert). Gabrielle and Loren compare recipes and finally choose romance from their menu, while Boyer begins to cave in from the stress of tax problems, restaurant critics, and police seeking illegal foreign workers. Jason Lee learned French in order to do the French dialogue version. In the English-language version, actors speak French but switch to English when Lee is onscreen. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

This French comedy parodies horror movies and detective films. It is set at the Cannes Film Festival. There, Odile, a sincere publicist, tries to promote the horror movie "Red Is Dead." The movie tells of a killer in a welding mask who wields a hammer and sickle with deadly results. The trouble begins when a real killer with the same m.o. begins knocking off projectionists at market screenings. In true publicist form, Odile immediately brings the film's star to the festival. To protect him, Odile hires a handsome bodyguard. Odile finds herself romanced by a police commissioner. Meanwhile a stranger lurks in the distance. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Wim Wenders' sprawling cyberpunk noir epic -- shot in no less than nine different countries -- is set in 1999 and stars Solveig Dommartin as Claire, a young Frenchwoman who comes into contact with a large sum of money stolen during a bank heist; in her travels she picks up a mysterious American hitchhiker (William Hurt), who himself steals some of the money before parting from her company. Upon discovering the theft, Claire sets out on his trail, with both a Hammett-styled German private eye (Rudiger Vogler) as well as her former lover, a novelist portrayed by Sam Neill, in tow. The hitchhiker is really Sam Farber, the son of an underground scientist (Max Von Sydow), and his mission is to travel the globe in order to acquire the funding necessary to develop the technology which will allow his blind mother (Jeanne Moreau) to "see" visual recordings of her family members; the second half of the film takes place largely in the Farbers' compound in the Australian Outback, where Sam, Claire and the others take refuge while attempting to bring the sight project to its fruition, in the meantime pondering earth's future in the wake of a nuclear disaster in outer space. Wenders' most ambitious film to date, budgeted at $23 million, Until the End Of the World is also among his most seriously flawed efforts -- despite a keen sense of cultural perception, a fascinating sci-fi take on life in the near-future and stunning Robby Muller cinematography, the picture never quite gels. Much of the blame seems to fall upon its distributors -- upon its wide release in 1991, the movie was drastically cut to a running time of 2 1/2 hours, resulting in a disjointed narrative that doesn't shift gears so much as grind them as the action moves from country to country. Still, while a three-hour version, issued on laserdisc in Japan, comes closer to realizing the full scope of Wenders' epic vision, rumors of a five-hour director's cut -- said to have been screened to thunderous applause at a handful of film festivals -- continue to persist, suggesting that a masterpiece may well exist here after all. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

In another indictment of the flaws of our so-called civilization, this satire from the late director (Marco Ferreri) features (Christopher Lambert) as Michel, a miserable man who has failed at love and finds solace in a mechanical key holder. Michel has just been dumped by Barbara (Anemone) because he has not been able to get her pregnant. He is feeling pretty low when he finds a key holder with blue eyes and big red lips that responds to the sound of a whistle with "I Love You." Michel tacks this gadget up on his TV set and whistles away. He seems happy with this fool-proof declaration of love until one day, the key holder responds to the neighbor's whistle and Michel goes berserk. After all, if your key ring can't be faithful, what's the world coming to? ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A French music lover befriends a once-great American jazz artist and attempts to save him from self-destruction in this moody drama. Saxophonist Dexter Gordon portrays Dale Turner, a fictional musician inspired by a number of famed jazz figures, including Bud Powell and Lester Young. Largely forgotten in his home country, Turner has moved to Paris in search of a more appreciative audience. He finds it in the form of Francis Borler (Francois Cluzet), a bebop aficionado who befriends the expatriate player. Borler soon becomes familiar with Turner's darker side, including his struggles with alcoholism, drug addiction, and depression. Fearing for the musician's life, the fan becomes his caretaker, an arrangement that leads to a brief improvement in Turner's health and fortunes but places great emotional strain upon them both. Director Bertrand Tavernier pays great attention to the visual and aural details of the jazz world, with outstanding musical supervision provided by Herbie Hancock. 'Round Midnight's greatest asset, however, is Gordon's Academy Award-nominated performance, informed by his own life experiences. His naturally fascinating presence combines with the film's obvious love of the music and its milieu to provide what many have hailed as one of the more authentic and affectionate presentations of the jazz world on the silver screen. ~ Judd Blaise, 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

Jean-Claude Missiaen had a very brief career as a director in the mid-1980s, and this is one of his typical police dramas that allude to American movie tough guys and detectives, to previous films in the same genre, and to well-known police/criminal actors or types (such as Humphrey Bogart). The story revolves around the relationship between a team of two policemen, brash and quick to act, devoted to justice and bending the rules to get it. The duo have to overcome a sexually off-beat, evil woman and a group of gangsters doing illegal real estate deals if they are to succeed on their currently assigned case. The two policemen (Gerard Lanvin and Eddy Mitchell) have their share of shoot-outs and brawls before the bad guys and bad woman discover that crime does not pay as well as they thought. Caught between references to other movies and characters, a certain amount of melodrama, and a wandering camera style, director Missiaen may have taken off in too many directions at once to maintain the interest of most viewers. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide