Alice Sapritch Movies

The Bronte sisters are profiled in this biography. The film dramatizes the repressed Victorian lives of the three famed authors who all died young. Their writing, so full of life, was a total contrast to the reality of their existence, focused mostly upon arguing with their father and taking care of their younger brother. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A self-centered and lazy young man, consumed by sexual fantasies and schemes, is forced to marry when his mistress becomes pregnant. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This dark French comedy satirizes suburban living. Marthe Keller and Jacques Higelin play a newly married couple who have just moved into the suburbs. Nearly everything is oppressive: among other things, the walls of their house are too thin and their neighbors harangue them with complaints of all kinds. They also suffer from the difficulties of the commute to work. When this routine nearly drives the wife to suicide, they are both relieved when their house literally blows up around them. They then discover another set of indignities while they are at the hospital. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

When sanitarium cook Surveillant (Raymond Devos) liberates a couple of patients and takes them on a trip to gaze on the ocean for the first time, he lands in hot water with his boss the director, who is a hard-hearted harridan with no time for such nonsense. In any event, the bumbling cook has taken the director's car, an insufferable mistake. The chase begins as his boss ropes her milquetoast husband into stealing a gas truck, and they set off in hot pursuit. This French comedy is the first feature film directed by François Reichenbach, who previously made only documentaries, and marks the first film appearance of stand-up comic Raymond Devos. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This French historical comedy/farce, loosely based on Victor Hugo's play Ruy Blas, benefits greatly from having Louis De Funes and Yves Montand in the roles of Saluste and Blaze. Saluste is a nobleman who has been exiled from court and sent to collect taxes in the countryside. Blaze is his assistant, who manages to help the overtaxed peasants behind his boss's back. When Saluste decides to resume meddling in the monarch's affairs using Blaze as his henchman, his schemes backfire badly. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

A dying desert town becomes a flashpoint for racial violence in this bizarre, over-the-top drama from France. Cicada is a fetid, arid Dogpatch that had been slowly drying up ever since a nearby river was dammed up, sending the town's farmers packing. These days, Cicada has become home to a motley band of alcoholics, petty criminals, and prostitutes, with Bob Stanley (Jacques Richard), the town's solo war veteran, one of the few with any interest in improving himself. Cicada is racially segregated, with the town's black population living under a curfew, but Bob ignores that when he invites Bessie Vance (Toto Bissainthe), an attractive African woman whom he meets at the town's ramshackle school, to join him for a dance in town. Bob is more interested in making time with Bessie than making a case for racial tolerance, but enough of Cicada's rednecks are outraged by his dalliance with a black woman that he's brutally beaten later that night. One of the culprits decides to blame the near-fatal beating on the town's black citizens, and it's not long before Cicada is on the verge of a race war. Also known as Les Tripes au Soleil, Checkerboard was written and directed by Claude Bernard-Aubert, who would later offer a more measured view of race relations with My Baby Is Black. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This routine film by novice director Jean-Gabriel Albicocco handles the taboo subject of a homosexual relationship between women, though the story still implies that if a man falls in love with a lesbian she can change her sexual orientation. Loosely based on a novel by Honore de Balzac, a skirt-chasing fashion photographer meets a charming young woman who captures his interest immediately. She is not wholly forthcoming, but after a period of time, he realizes that he is in love with her -- she is not just another conquest. It takes awhile before he also realizes that she is the partner of his femme associate who is possessive, at the very least. As it turns out, one corner in this odd triangle is highly unstable. This was one of the early films of Françoise Dorleac, Catherine Deneuve's beautiful sister who was killed in an automobile accident in 1967. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Francois Truffaut's loving homage to Hollywood gangster films is less a plot-filled film noir than a free-associative meditation on the genre. Charles Aznavour stars as a one-time concert pianist who gained fame as Edouard Saroyan but has since changed his name to Charlie Kohler and plays honky-tonk in an out-of-the-way saloon. His self-imposed exile is shattered by the appearance of his mobster brother Richard Saroyan (Jacques Aslanian). Richard and his other brother, Chico (Albert Remy), are on the lam from gangsters they've double-crossed. Charlie helps Richard and Chico get away, but he now finds that his life, along with his younger brother Fido's (Richard Kanayan, has been put into jeopardy, having gotten mixed up with gangsters Momo (Claude Mansard) and Ernest (Daniel Boulanger) who are pursuing Richard and Chico. Momo and Ernest keep an eye on Charlie's apartment and, although they don't get Fido, they manage to kidnap Charlie and Lena (Marie Dubois), a co-worker with whom he has fallen in love. But when Ernest runs a red light and is pulled over, Charlie and Lena escape the gangsters' clutches. They take refuge in Lena's apartment, where Charlie sees a poster for a performance by Edouard Saroyan, causing Charlie to think back upon the circumstances that had led him to this moment in his life. Lena and Charlie make love, and Charlie returns to his apartment, only to discover Fido has been kidnapped. Lena and Charlie then head back to his club, where they plan to quit their jobs and try to find Fido. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide