Françoise Prevost Movies

Claire (Marlene Jobert), a bilingual UNESCO interpreter meets Simon (Jean-Michele Folon), an oceanographer at an international conference she is assigned to work (UNESCO's international headquarters are in Paris). The two are drawn to each other, and romance blossoms. Just as they begin to establish a stable relationship, she discovers that she has breast cancer, and after a few trips to the doctor, she finds out that she needs a mastectomy. Unable to face her new boyfriend with the truth, she breaks off their relationship. As one might expect, no oceanographer worth his salt is going to leave his true love for just any shallow reason. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

In this sad French romance, a factory owner gives up everything to win the love of a hooker who loves only her job. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Shakespeare is combined with the spaghetti western in this interesting offering. Though the language is modernized, the plot is basically the same as Hamlet. In this version, the hero does not die--instead he rides off into the sunset. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this French crime/action thriller, set in New York City, the young French waiter who stumbles on a killing at his restaurant could not be considered lucky, by any means. He decides to leave New York and return to France to avoid pursuit by the mobster who committed the murder. Unfortunately, he has left too powerful a memento with his American mistress for her to forget that she loves him, for she is pregnant. Even though she marries another, this only adds another person to the list of people searching for him: police, mobster, mistress, mistress's husband. Things look even worse for him when the mobster and the police join forces. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

A classical music conductor lives with his mistress and her teenage daughter. When he and the daughter begin a love affair, the mother allows the tryst to continue for fear of losing him should she deny him her daughter's affections. The young girl falls for an avant garde musician, and the conductor tries to sabotage the relationship. He is successful for a short time, but the girl eventually runs off with the musician. The man is left with the mother, who for some strange reason still loves the lecherous lout. The film attempts to be critical of the cruel and snobbish high society that the man must tolerate in order to insure his economic survival. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

Released in Europe as Histoires Extraordinaires and Tre Passi Nel Delirio, this is a portmanteau picture, comprised of three supernatural playlets based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe. "Metzengerstein," directed by Roger Vadim, stars the director's then-wife Jane Fonda as a medieval woman prone to acts of vengeance. Her brother Peter Fonda is somewhat perversely cast as her cousin, for whom she holds incestuous yearnings. When he gives her the cold shoulder, she spitefully sets fire to his stable of horses. He is himself killed in the blaze, but it seems that he has been reincarnated as a horse. In "William Wilson," directed by Louis Malle, a sadistic Austrian officer (Alain Delon) commits various S&M misdeeds upon a variety of victims, including a woman (Brigitte Bardot) with whom he plays cards. The officer himself comes to grief when he finds that the Church will not allow him to say an act of contrition. And "Never Bet Your Head," directed by Federico Fellini, updates the Poe original by casting Terence Stamp as a self-indulgent movie star. Driving drunk one evening, the actor literally bets his head that he can escape a potentially fatal accident. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this drama, a repertory actress suffers a creative block and ends up blaming her boyfriend. The fellow is a gifted photographer, whom she believes has sold his soul to advertising. She lacks the fire to confront him outright, so to vent her true feelings, the girl decides to masquerade as her sister, whom he has never met. While this impersonation, as such, is successful, it doesn't have the effect the actress intended. Nonetheless, it helps her get past at least one of her blockages. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

For anyone not up on Italian history during World War II, this interesting docudrama about the eventual execution by the Nazis of Mussolini's son-in-law Count Ciano (Frank Wolf) will have a few gaps. The war is ending and the fascists have clearly lost, so in their last-ditch effort to lay the blame elsewhere they choose Galeazzo Ciano, their former Foreign Minister, as one of several "traitors" to the fascist cause. Neither Mussolini himself nor an offer of the Count's diaries have any effect on the Verona-based trial which condemned and executed several others as traitors. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi