Jean Panisse Movies
- 1990
The Italians have bocce ball, and the French have a similar game, boules. This is played (generally in the southern part of the country) with steel balls on a packed-earth court. While these games have a bucolic, countrified and even genteel air about them, competition and betting are fierce. In this sports/crime thriller, a young man whose father was killed for violating the unspoken roles of the game in professional competition trains with his grandfather to become a champion boules player just like his father. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Serge Reggiani, François Négret, (more)
- 1984
Stephane (Jean-Paul Belmondo) has a predilection for being unfaithful, and when he is caught by his wife with the charming Julie (Sophie Marceau) in his bed, he passes Julie off as his daughter by a former marriage -- someone he had forgotten to mention before. Julie, of course, is not thrilled with the situation, nor is Stephane's wife -- and so the adventure begins in this ribald comedy. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jean-Paul Belmondo, Sophie Marceau, (more)
- 1979
- R
Charles is a middle-aged junk dealer, beset by several imagined illnesses. Lucie is his lady friend, a washed-up singer. Vulnerable and easily led, Charles and Lucie fall victim to a confidence scheme. Left penniless in the south of France, our hero and heroine find themselves the targets of pursuit, not only from the authorities but from the underworld. The curious result is that they regain their join in living. Charles and Lucie is one of a handful of amiable character studies (and the last one to date) directed by Abel Gance protegee Nelly Kaplan. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Daniel Ceccaldi, Ginette Garcin, (more)
Known to English-speaking audiences as Day for Night, La nuit américaine was director François Truffaut's loving and humorous tribute to the communal insanity of making a movie. The film details the making of a family drama called "Meet Pamela" about the tragedy that follows when a young French man introduces his parents to his new British wife. Truffaut gently satirizes his own films with "Meet Pamela"'s overwrought storyline, but the real focus is on the chaos behind the scenes. One of the central actresses is continually drunk due to family problems, while the other is prone to emotional instability, and the male lead (Truffaut regular Jean-Pierre Leaud) starts to act erratically when his intermittent romance with the fickle script girl begins to fail. In addition to all this personal drama, the film is besieged by technical problems, from difficult tracking shots to stubborn animal actors. The inspiration for future satires of movie-making from Living in Oblivion to Irma Vep, La nuit américaine was considered slight by some critics in comparison to earlier Truffaut masterworks, but it went on to win the 1973 Oscar for Best Foreign Film. ~ Judd Blaise, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jacqueline Bisset, Valentina Cortese, (more)
- 1971
French comic Louis De Funes stars as Henri, who has a very unfortunate accident while on his way to arrange some sort of shady deal on the Italian border. He has tried desperately not to let his better impulses get control of him; nonetheless, he has already picked up a hitchhiker (Olivier De Funes) and a married woman in distress (Geraldine Chaplin) when his car runs off the road, falls over a cliff, and lands in the crown of a tree. The efforts of this threesome to cope with the situation and get rescued constitute the body of this film. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Geraldine Chaplin
- 1958
The heroine in L'Eau Vive is the unwilling heir to a fortune. Young Hortense (Pascale Audret) has always known that her family was greedy, but until she inherits her father's hidden millions she has no idea how loathsome her relatives could be. Surrounded on all sides by grubby, outstretched hands, Hortense takes some comfort in the fact that her legacy is still missing. When the money is finally recovered, our heroine does the "right thing" with her windfall, leaving her mercenary family empty-handed. Throughout the film, Hortense's dilemma is likened to a government dam project not far from her home; as the bridge grows in size, so too does Hortense's resolve to rise above the nastiness all around her. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Pascale Audret, Charles Blavette, (more)
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