Magali Noël Movies

In this exploitation drama, a young woman's dreams of marital bliss with a handsome playboy are shattered when she finds out that he is a white slaver who wants her to be his newest hooker. He sends her to a client aboard a yacht. She tries to flee but gets caught and is sent to a hellish punishment place called "The Hole." Meanwhile the playboy is left to sort out his feelings for her. Unbeknownst to him, the cops are hot on his trail. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Arthur (Jean Richard) dreams of killing his harridan shrew of a wife to spend more time with his demanding mistress in this crime drama. His wife refuses to grant him a divorce, so Arthur puts his mind to murder. Arthur kills a woman who is sleeping in his bed, but it turns out to be the mistress who had earlier come to visit the wife. His spouse knocked out the mistress by hitting her and dumped the unconscious victim in the bed. Arthur and his wife hide the body, but he discovers that the mistress was poisoned before her visit to his wife. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

L'Accident is another variation on the Diabolique theme. Georges Riviere is in love with Magali Noel. Only one obstacle stands in the way of Riviere's happiness: his wife. Maybe things would be better if she had an accident...which he is willing to arrange. But this is only the launching pad for an unstettling series of plot detours and unexpected twists. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A cold-blooded serial killer who murders only blonde women captures dramatic interest right at the beginning of this top-notch thriller, and reves up the interest to all-out suspense from that point onward. Harry Meyen is Andreas, the killer who has just murdered again when he is spotted by someone he knows, exactly as he is leaving the scene of the crime. Well aware that he cannot let the witness live, he stalks him, waiting for a chance to kill him off. He eventually trails the man to a gathering of well-heeled party-goers who decide to play a game of "murder" -- and they unwittingly give the killer his chance. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

As in François Truffaut's award-winning first picture, 400 Blows, Jean-Pierre Leaud once again takes up the role of a besieged and troubled teen in Boulevard. But that ends the points of similarity between the dramas, since this is a routine and uneven film, not up to director Julien Duviver's usual standard. This time around, the young hero is a sixteen-year-old by the name of Georges whose problems do not stem as much from himself as from the people around him. After running away from home, he has rather shattering encounters with an oversize striptease diva and two aggressive gay men, as well as an on-going antagonism with a boxer who is as pleasant as a wounded bull. These run-ins with life on the streets inevitably have their effect on Georges, no longer as naive as when he first left home. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In one of the most widely seen and acclaimed European movies of the 1960s, Federico Fellini featured Marcello Mastrioanni as gossip columnist Marcello Rubini. Having left his dreary provincial existence behind, Marcello wanders through an ultra-modern, ultra-sophisticated, ultra-decadent Rome. He yearns to write seriously, but his inconsequential newspaper pieces bring in more money, and he's too lazy to argue with this setup. He attaches himself to a bored socialite (Anouk Aimée), whose search for thrills brings them in contact with a bisexual prostitute. The next day, Marcello juggles a personal tragedy (the attempted suicide of his mistress (Yvonne Furneaux)) with the demands of his profession (an interview with none-too-deep film star Anita Ekberg). Throughout his adventures, Marcello's dreams, fantasies, and nightmares are mirrored by the hedonism around him. With a shrug, he concludes that, while his lifestyle is shallow and ultimately pointless, there's nothing he can do to change it and so he might as well enjoy it. Fellini's hallucinatory, circus-like depictions of modern life first earned the adjective "Felliniesque" in this celebrated movie, which also traded on the idea of Rome as a hotbed of sex and decadence. A huge worldwide success, La Dolce Vita won several awards, including a New York Film Critics CIrcle award for Best Foreign Film and the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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

A so-so drama with uneven acting, this is a tale of three women and one man trapped on a deserted island in World War II after a shipwreck. Christian Marquand is Patrick, the lone man who cannot but develop a relationship with all three women. Their fates are not what might be expected, as the women slowly reveal their true natures. One tries to get to another island to find help, and one turns out to be pathologically homicidal. She kills the only other woman, leaving two choices for her murderous inclination -- herself or Patrick or both. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide