Blanche Ravalec Movies
- 2000
As the title would suggest, this film, directed by Frederic Schoendoerffer, is a noirish crime drama about two forensic cops on the trail of serial murderer. Georges Fabian (Charles Berling) and Jean-Louis Gomez (Andre Dussollier) are put on the case when Marie -- the teenaged daughter of a couple who own a roadside cafe -- vanishes the day after the family dog disappears. Georges' schoolteacher wife is expecting their first child, while Jean-Louis' spouse walked out on him days after their daughter left home. The two discover a magazine daubed with Marie's blood in the eatery's lobby, and with the help of a police dog, they discover a canine corpse across the street. Later, when the bodies of a young white woman and a black man are unearthed sans heads and hands, Georges and Jean-Louis think that they have at last found Marie. In fact, they've hit upon a ritual murder similar to a series of killings that baffled the Belgian police in 1993. The two then begin to doggedly gather clues and witnesses. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Berling, André Dussollier, (more)
- 1992
As a way of getting on in the world, working for wages and constantly being in danger of being fired or laid off is a pretty poor system. In this movie, pretty, young Aimee decides that marriage to the right man is a much better bargain. Though she is very fond of an impoverished bookstore owner, the man who meets her strict criteria is a famous and high-strung restaurant critic. After cohabiting with her new spouse for a while, she goes for the really big-time payoff that comes with divorce and stages everything entirely to her satisfaction. Of course, it takes an iron will and tremendous concentration for this passionate girl to play such a stern, money-grubbing role, but she's up to the task. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maria de Medeiros, Thierry Fortineau, (more)
- 1987
Nicolas (Francis Perrin) is the director of a swinging club for singles in this routine sex comedy. In addition to his own amorous conquests, he tries to help his shy friend improve his lonely love life. Nicolas eventually begins to wonder if settling down in a relationship with the right woman is the way to go. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Francis Perrin, Jean-Paul Comart, (more)
- 1984
Produced on behalf of the HBO cable service, The Blood of Others is a rare venture into English-language filmmaking by Claude Chabrol. Set during World War II, the film stars Jodie Foster and Michael Ontkean as a pair of French resistance fighters. If you can swallow that, then you'll accept New Zealand native Sam Neill as a German businessman. Chabrol's wife Stephane Audran costars as Gigi, while other prominent members of the cast include Alexandra Stewart, Jean-Pierre Aumont and Micheline Presle. Oh, yes, the plot: based on a novel by Simone de Beauvoir, The Blood of Others concerns Jodie Foster's confused loyalties: should she continue in her underground activities, or succumb to the charms of the seemingly civilized Neill? This French-Canadian coproduction was originally telecast August 23, 1984. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jodie Foster, Michael Ontkean, (more)
- 1983
Sam Fuller (1911-1997) directed this rather mediocre crime story about a Bonnie-and-Clyde couple -- how they got together and how they are pursued for a murder they never committed. François (Bobby Di Cicco) and Isabelle (Veronique Jannot) meet in an unemployment office, a likely place to find others in their profession: he is a cellist and she, an art historian. While there, Isabelle gets into a nasty incident with one of the clerks, and François helps her out of the office with the end result that the two continue meeting and eventually fall in love. They try to make money as street musicians, though nothing seems to work out. Isabelle then suggests they rob the three unemployment office personnel who were the most obnoxious to them, a suggestion that leads to their breaking into an apartment in which the occupant accidentally falls to his death. At first both Isabelle and the police believe she pushed the man out the window -- and the chase is on. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Véronique Jannot, Bobby Di Cicco, (more)
- 1981
A Jewish Mafia-like family is running a prostitution ring, selling "protection," and operating gambling casinos -- more or less with impunity, and at peace with their Arab counterparts -- until a young gangster (Bernard Giraudeau) decides to pit the two ethnic factions against each other. Jewish cultural and religious events are celebrated by the Jewish gangsters, who promote family traditions -- in contrast to the police inspector who has no family and is out to do them all in. Focusing on the Jewish mob boss, the story has him undergoing some personal rehabilitation in the end. Actually, comparing the merits of ethnically and religiously different mobs of gangsters might be a little like comparing the respective beauty of a pair of week-old corpses. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roger Hanin, Jean-Louis Trintignant, (more)
In this adaptation of Ian Fleming's 1955 novel, James Bond (Roger Moore) must thwart Sir Hugo Drax (Michel Lonsdale), who plans to wipe out all of humankind and replace it with a super race that he has cultivated in a massive space station. The girl in the case is American secret agent Holly Goodhead, intelligently played by Lois Chiles. "Jaws," the steel-mouthed henchman played by Richard Kiel in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), makes a return appearance in Moonraker, turning good guy (complete with a girlfriend of his own) in the process. Bernard Lee makes his last appearance as "M" in this most costly of James Bond's 1970s escapades. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roger Moore, Lois Chiles, (more)
- 1978
In this sex comedy, the summer vacationers staying at a beach hotel have only one thing on their minds: sex. Whether they are pre-adolescent boys, mature housewives, young shopkeepers or bemused old-timers, they are all either thinking about it, doing something about having it, or watching with great interest the shenanigans of others. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Daniel Ceccaldi, Myriam Boyer, (more)
