Georges Poujouly Movies

Based on the novel Biribi, by Georges Darrien, this French film brings to the screen the story of Froissard (Michel Tureau), a young French soldier in the late 19th century who is assigned to Biribi, a disciplinary battalion in North Africa. Disciplinary battalions, then as now, were alternatives to prisons and court martials. Misfits and "hard cases" that the military is unable or unwilling to deal with in some other way are assigned to Biribis. However, a somewhat similar group of problem soldiers are often assigned to run such units. In this case, the young soldier Froissard, guilty of nothing much, is assigned to the battalion because of the indifferent negligence of his superior officers. He is placed under the leadership of sadists, rapists, and tough cases of all kinds. ~ Clarke Fountain, 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

Eddie Constantine stars as Napo in this situation comedy. Napo has inherited the care of an old, run-down house from an elderly gentleman. On one of his many adventures, he secures the services of a young but experienced auto mechanic. The two proceed to build a drag strip on the property, as Napo helps the young mechanic with his education. But they both have eyes for a pretty French girl and battle for her affections while fighting some underhanded real estate developers who covet the rebuilt property. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Best known for his La Cage aux Folles, director Edouard Molinaro has a lesser film here in this occasionally erotic story about a summer romance. A young artist is traveling to the home of a glamorous friend for the summer season when he picks up an attractive woman at a bar. He decides to bring her along, which turns out to be too hasty a decision. While partying away the summer, the son of the hostess dallies with the artist's young woman and she vacillates in her feelings between the two men. The atmosphere and the woman's ambivalence add up to tragedy in the end. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Les Ouefs de L'Autruche translates to The Ostrich Eggs, a description of the offspring of bourgeois paterfamilias Hippo (Pierre Fresnay). For Hippo is indeed a human ostrich, remaining blind to the true natures of his wife and children until it is too late. Prizing his eldest son as a prime example of French manhood, Hippo is shocked to learn that the boy is an unhappy homosexual. His other son, assumed to be self-reliant, allows himself to be the kept man of a wealthy Japanese woman. As for his wife, whom he has underestimated and browbeaten all her life, Hippo discovers that she once planned to leave him for his best friend. Hardly a candidate for "Family Hour" television, Les Oeufs de L'Autruche was adapted from a stage play by Roussin. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This Roger Vadim production was released in the US as ...And God Created Woman. Vadim's then-wife Brigitte Bardot plays the central character, a curvaceous nymphet with a voracious sexual appetite. In fact, it isn't what Bardot does in bed but what she might do that drives the three principal male characters (Curd Jurgens, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Christian Marquand) into an erotic frenzy. Most available prints of ...And God Created Woman have been heavily edited to conform with the prevailing censorial standards of 1957. Vadim remade his own film in 1987. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Originally titled Nous Sommes Tout des Assassins, We Are All Murderers was directed by Andre Cayette, a former lawyer who detested France's execution system. Charles Spaak's screenplay makes no attempt to launder the four principal characters (Marcel Mouloudji, Raymond Pellegrin, Antoinine Balpetre, Julien Verdeir): never mind the motivations, these are all hardened murderers. Still, the film condemns the sadistic ritual through which these four men are brought to the guillotine. In France, the policy is to never tell the condemned man when the execution will occur--and then to show up without warning and drag the victim kicking and screaming to his doom, without any opportunity to make peace with himself or his Maker. By the end of this harrowing film, the audience feels as dehumanized as the four "protagonists." We are All Murderers was roundly roasted by the French law enforcement establishment, but it won a special jury prize at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One of the first films to see the horrors of war through the eyes of children, Forbidden Games was a critical smash, winning prizes from the New York Film Critics, the British Academy, and the Venice Film Festival. Adapted by Francois Boyer, director Rene Clement, and two others from Boyer's novel, the story focuses on Paulette (Brigitte Fossey), a five-year-old refugee from Paris taken in by a peasant family after her parents are killed during a bombardment of a civilian convoy. Michel Dolle (Georges Pujouly), the family's 11-year-old son, becomes her best friend, and they create a cemetery in which Paulette's dog is interred, along with other animals and insects, some of whom the children kill themselves. The Dolle family is too busy feuding with the Gouards, their neighbors, to notice the absence of the children. Eventually, authorities locate Paulette and insist that she be placed in an orphanage for legal adoption. Unsentimental and yet heartbreaking, Forbidden Games demonstrates the strategies of children who witness war to deal with the constant presence of death. It's also a bitter condemnation of the selfishness of adults who could offer their charges more love and protection. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide