Dario Moreno Movies
- 1968
A young female film editor specializes in discovering why other women degrade themselves in pornography and prostitution. She has a relationship with a boring artist, and her life is uneventful until she encounters an older, more worldly art dealer. The man shows her his photographs and she is mesmerized by a picture of a naked woman in chains. The man tries to hide the photo, but she is insistent on seeing it. The man admits this is how he gets aroused, by taking pictures of the bound beauties. The woman asks to come to a photo session where she is repulsed and intrigued at the same time. She leaves, but later returns to the man at his office and becomes hooked on his sadomasochistic voyeurism and begs to become the next model for his camera in the upcoming photo session. He brings in another woman and the session degenerates into a lesbian love fest that the man eagerly captures on film. Shamed, debased and degraded, she pulls her car onto a train track and contemplates her demise. Injured but not dead, she is straddled in her hospital bed when the man comes to visit. She goes into a psychedelic hallucination dream sequence in which her sexual escapades flash before her eyes as the man and her artist boyfriend engage in fisticuffs. Yikes! ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elisabeth Wiener, Laurent Terzieff, (more)
- 1966
While his icy wife is away tending to a sick friend, Benedict Boniface (Alec Guinness) has an affair with Marcelle Cot (Gina Lollobrigida), the pretty but neglected wife of the pompous architect Henri (Robert Morley). When Henri unexpectedly returns, Marcelle and Benedict don disguises and hide out to avoid being caught by her husband. The comedy of errors allows for several sight gags and farcical bedroom situations. Peggy Mount is particularly effective as the dominating wife who makes her husband tremble with fear by her very presence. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alec Guinness, Gina Lollobrigida, (more)
- 1962
Eddie Constantine once again picks up his usual persona, this time as Bobby, an FBI agent who is affable, equipped with enough verbal acuity to make his way through any situation, tough, and sharp as nails. As always, he is also romantically engaging. This time around, Bobby helps out a woman who is in need of assistance and along the way gets involved with busting a drug cartel, all with the usual and appropriate physical prowess. Christiane Minazzoli stars as Juliette, Bobby's romantic interest. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eddie Constantine, Christiane Minazzoli, (more)
- 1961
In this biblical drama, set during the waning years of the Roman Empire, the trouble begins as the Christians continue to be persecuted. The daughter of a wealthy patrician whips the stuffing out of a newly purchased Christian slave who stubbornly refuses to wrestle in the ring. Later the girl and the slave fall in love, and she comes to understand their plight. She then learns that some of her closest friends and relatives are closet Christians. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1961
This children's adventure yarn stars one of the most famous comic-strip characters in Europe, Tintin, personified in the flesh by Jean-Pierre Talbot. The teen-ager Tintin and his dog are going to help their friend, Captain Haddock (Charles Wilson) on a special quest. The good but crotchety captain has inherited a ship and he needs to go to Turkey to pick it up and sail it home. Once the trio (including the dog) arrive at their destination, they quickly discover that the ship is far from being ship-shape. And so why is someone trying to assassinate them in order to get their hands on the sea-going craft? Maybe the rickety ship has a secret. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Georges Wilson
- 1960
This undistinguished action film by Maurice Cloche is set in Los Angeles and with ample corpses and nudity, unfolds the tale of a series of murders -- the victims are all prostitutes. A real thin-man detective by the name of Al (Philippe Clay) gets involved in the case and slowly starts to ferret out evidence. Between the women in his life and his weakness for scotch, Al is busy but he still finds the time to kill off a few bad guys and stack up the clues that lead him to a bogus funeral parlor and a brutal procurer. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Philippe Clay, Dario Moreno, (more)
- 1960
Jean-Pierre Cassel is ideally cast as the hopelessly optimistic Candide in this noir updating of Voltaire's classic 18th-century social satire. Candide has been assured by his ivory-tower professor (Pierre Brasseur) that whatever fate befalls him, he will be all the better for it. Armed with the confidence of the ignorant, Candide is abused by practically everyone he comes across (he has a particularly rough time in a German POW camp), but somehow emerges with his faith in humanity unscathed. His picaresque adventures take him all the way to the Americas, both North and South. Just as in most stage versions of Candide, some of the supporting actors play double and triple roles: Robert Manuel, for example, portrays all the German officers Candide meets. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pierre Brasseur, Michel Simon, (more)
- 1959
Originally titled Nathalie, Secret Agent, the Anglo-American Atomic Agent is a sequel to the 1957 film Nathalie (aka Foxiest Girl in Paris). The delectable Martine Carol reprises her role as adventuresome Parisian model Nathalie. This time, Our Heroine's unquenchable curiosity brings her in close contact with an espionage ring. Using all the feminine wiles at her disposal, Nathalie rounds up the spies long before the police have a clue as to what's going on. Both Atomic Agent and its predecessor were based on characters and situations created by novelist Frank Marchal. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1959
Brigitte Bardot was only twenty-four when she was featured in this typical sexual drama yet she was already a star on the international film scene. In this story she is Eva, a perfect blonde who has all the men in Seville, Spain chasing after her, though she is not interested in any of them. Even when the wealthy Don Mateo (Antonio Vilar) falls hard for her charms, he cannot turn her head in his direction. He gives up everything for her and then finds that persistence and a few rough times pay off in the end as the imperious blond begins to reconsider her attitude -- slightly. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brigitte Bardot, Antonio Vilar, (more)
- 1959
A familiar plot and a lovable, sexual, somewhat ditsy female are at the core of this frothy comedy-crime drama found in various incarnations in movies of this type. This is a lesser sequel to the more successful Nathalie. The Nathalie of the title is a lithesome, big-hearted model played by Martine Carol (wife of French director Christian-Jacque, who ceded her position to Brigitte Bardot as France's top sex-symbol). Nathalie inadvertently gets involved with a group of spies out to steal the secret of an atomic engine. The usual inept Inspector (Felix Marten) is on the case, but in the end Nathalie manages to outwit the Inspector in thwarting the spies, not that difficult a task, apparently. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Martine Carol, Felix Marten, (more)
This slight comedy-mystery is another late '50s vehicle for Brigitte Bardot who repeats her sex-kitten persona with ease. She plays Virginie, an instructor at a dance studio that one day is hit with a tragedy -- the owner of the studio is murdered. That is bad enough, but to make matters worse, Virginie's husband has been accused of the crime. She knows he could not be the killer and so she sets out to prove his innocence to the police, and maybe find the real culprit at the same time. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brigitte Bardot, Henri Vidal, (more)
- 1959
At the time of this film, director John Berry was still working in France where he landed after being blacklisted in the early 1950s by the House Un-American Activities Committee. This routine light comedy interspersed with songs is mainly a vehicle for talents like singer Dario Moreno as, not surprisingly, Dario the bank teller who longs to be a singer. Comics (Alberto Sordi as Nando) add touches of humor, while other actors such as Michel Serrault as a police inspector do their best with a script that is slight enough to come off as somewhat bland. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dario Moreno, Magali Noël, (more)
Francois Perier, Peter vanEyck, and Anouk Aimee star in this tense tale of five highly skilled thieves who all pool their resources in hopes of pulling off the perfect heist. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- 1954
Quai des Blondes stars Michel Auclair as a handsome cigarette smuggler named Jacques. When his boat is robbed of its cargo, Jacques knows better than to turn to the cops. The remainder of the film could be subtitled "The Revenge of Jacques," as our anti-hero gets even with his foes. As the title indicates, Jacques also finds time for romance -- two romances, in fact, seemingly conducted simultaneously. The ladies in question are played by Barbara Laage and Madeleine LeBeau, the latter best known to American audiences for her performance as glamorous camp-follower Yvonne in Casablanca. Quai des Blondes was lensed on location in Marseilles and Algiers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Auclair, Barbara Laage, (more)
- 1953
The title of this French crime meller translates into The Gun Moll. Eddie Constantine makes the first of several appearances as Lemmy Caution, the two-fisted American government agent created by novelist Peter Cheney. In this outing, Lemmy is dispatched to Casablanca, there to put the kibosh on a gold-hijacking operation. His job is made easier when he wins gun moll Carlotta (Dominique Wilms) over to his side. At 105 minutes, the action flags on occasion in La Mome vert de Gris. Still, the film was successful enough to spawn a whole series of "Lemmy Caution" adventures, including Jean-Luc Goddard's novelle vague fantasy Alphaville (1966). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eddie Constantine, Dominique Wilms, (more)
Together with Diabolique, The Wages of Fear (Le Salaire de la Peur) earned Henri-Georges Clouzot the reputation as a "French Hitchcock." In truth, Clouzot's ability to sustain suspense may have even exceeded Hitchcock's; when originally released, Wages ran 155 tension-filled minutes. Based on the much-imitated novel by Georges Arnaud, the film is set in Central America. The Southern Oil Company, which pretty much rules the roost in the impoverished village of Las Piedras, sends out a call for long-distance truck drivers. Southern Oil's wages of 2,000 dollars per man are, literally, to die for -- the drivers are obliged to transport highly volatile nitroglycerine shipments across some of the most treacherous terrain on earth. Through expository dialogue, tense interactions and flashbacks, we become intimately acquainted with the four drivers who sign up for this death-defying mission: Corsican Yves Montand, Italian Folco Lulli, German Peter Van Eyck, and Frenchman Charles Vanel. The first half of the film slowly, methodically introduces the characters and their motivations. The second half -- the drive itself -- is a relentless, goosebump-inducing assault on the audience's senses. The winner of the Grand Prix at the Cannes Festival, The Wages of Fear was remade by William Friedkin as Sorcerer (1977). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yves Montand, Charles Vanel, (more)
