Yves Montand Movies

Based on the Francoise Sagan novel Aimez vous Brahms?, Goodbye Again stars Ingrid Bergman as Paula Tessier, a successful Parisian interior decorator (with a personal wardrobe by Christian Dior) and Yves Montand as her roving-eye lover, Roger Demarest. Worried that she'll be left in the lurch by the unfaithful Montand, Bergman enters into an affair with the much-younger Philip Van Der Besh (Anthony Perkins). Once he realizes that he's lost Paula to Philip, Roger offers to mend his rakish ways. She takes him back, and they are married; soon afterward, however, Roger goes back to his old skirt-chasing habits. Variety noted that Goodbye Again has "strong appeal for a middle-aged distaff audience"; nowadays, they'd call it a chick flick. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Claude Sautet's romantic drama César et Rosalie (Cesar and Rosalie) stars Romy Schneider as Rosalie, a beautiful young woman happily married to successful businessman Cesar (Yves Montand). One day, Rosalie's former flame David (Sami Frey) appears and attempts to win her back. Cesar reacts with a jealous intensity never before seen by Rosalie, and because of that, she returns to David. She remains conflicted as to with whom she should be, but eventually, one of the men does something which resolves the situation. César et Rosalie contains one of the first screen appearances of French actress Isabelle Huppert. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

A music biography video of Edith Piaf, with clips from concerts and interviews. ~ All Movie Guide

Yves Montand stars in this French seriocomedy as a middle-aged waiter. He has long harbored dreams of becoming a singer, and is also anxious to prove he's as virile as he was when he started pushing plates. Montand gets a chance to rev up his sexual energy and his musical skills when an old flame (Nicole Garcia) reenters his life after 17 years. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Henry Volney (Yves Montand) is a crusading district attorney who refuses to believe the official investigation on the death of an assassinated President in this uneven suspense thriller. He interview a waitress who is the only one who can positively identify the killer, but conspirators trace his call and are able to capture him. Montand gives a good performance, but the plot is too full of holes to be effective and is too implausible to be believable. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

In 1944, with Paris on the verge of Liberation by the allies, Adolph Hitler ordered that the City of Light be blown up and burned to the ground. General Dietrich Von Choltitz, after much rumination, decided that he didn't want to go down in history as the man who destroyed Paris. His refusal to follow Hitler's orders would make him a pariah in Germany for the rest of his life; nor was his gesture ever rewarded by the Allies. From this very human story in the midst of one of the most inhuman conflicts in history grew the screenplay (by Gore Vidal and Francis Ford Coppola) of the all-star, internationally produced Is Paris Burning? Whereas the earlier The Longest Day was able to support a castful of celebrities and brief subplot vignettes, Is Paris Burning? seems more weighted down than weighty. Still, a modern audience will have fun playing "spot the star" throughout the film, especially when those spotted stars include the likes of Gert Frobe (as Choltitz), Jean-Paul Belmondo, Alain Delon, Kirk Douglas (as Patton), Glenn Ford (as Bradley), Yves Montand, Simone Signoret, Robert Stack, and even Anthony Perkins as a wide-eyed GI. Filmed on a gargantuan scale, Is Paris Burning? was based on a book by Larry Collins and Dominique LaPierre. The film was lensed in black and white, save for the Technicolor finale (in the original road-show prints). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Autant-Lara's L'Auberge Rouge (The Red Inn) is black comedy at its very blackest. The scene is a rustic little inn in a remote rural area of France. The inn's proprietors Pierre (Carette) and Marie (Francoise Rosay) industriously support themselves by murdering the various stagecoach passengers who stop over at the inn, and then keep their valuables for themselves. As the story gets under way, a coach full of delightfully eccentric types pulls into the inn's courtyard, ripe for plucking. One of the passengers is a Monk (Fernandel), who learns of the innkeeper's homicidal schemes but is bound by the rules of the Confessional to reveal this information to no one. How can the monk secure the safety of his fellow passengers without betraying his vows? His solution--and the wickedly ironic coda that follows--will linger in the memory long after the final reel of L'Auberge Rouge tumbles over the spools. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

La Guerre est Finie represents one of the few "linear" films of French director Alain Resnais. Instead of indulging in his beloved flashbacks and flashforwards, Resnais sticks to a logical progression of events in relating this jaundiced tale of political activism. Yves Montand plays a tired, ageing revolutionary whose current target is Spain's Franco regime. Having become a familiar face to the authorities, Montand is no longer of any value as an undercover operative, yet he insists on leading a strike in Madrid. He is stopped from doing so by his fellow revolutionaries, who feel that Montand has become out of synch with the Movement. When Montand is finally able to complete his mission, everything goes wrong. Among the hero's "fellow" activists are Genevieve Bujold and Ingrid Thulin, both of whom harbor a romantic interest in Montand. The casual viewer might be surprised at the lack of action in the film, but favoring suspense over action is typical of Alain Resnais. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This French production concerns a gangster (Yves Montand) who retires to the countryside after living a full life of traditional crime. After settling into his new residence with his wife (Catherine Deneuve), his home is invaded by an unruly punk (Gerard Depardieu) who has some new-fangled ideas about the way crime should work. The film appears in French with English subtitles. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

This French drama shows what happens to the folks at home when someone who has been gone for a long time returns. Ange (Yves Montand) has been to America, but an uneasy feeling brings him back to his native island of Corsica. There he discovers his father has been killed, his mother is deathly ill, and his sweetheart has married his stay-at-home brother. Alas, his troubles are not over yet, as his return worries a pair of unscrupulous real-estate developers. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this ironic French tale of tragedy and love, Laurent (Yves Montand), a world-weary ex-convict and prison-reform writer is coming back to the dreary town his old prison is in. To someone whose life is so imbued with violence, everything he sees seems like a threat. Indeed, the town appears to be populated solely by thugs and elderly people. The banked fires of his passion are awakened when he sees a perfectly normal looking professional woman (Katherine Ross) coming down the street. Soon afterward, his sense of danger fails him, for he is brutally beaten in a men's restroom by a martial-artist nun. When he is taken for medical treatment, he discovers that the lovely woman he saw earlier is to be his doctor. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide