Francis Blanche Movies
French actor Francis Blanche played comic leads and supporting roles on stage, screen, and television. He is the son of stage and screen actor Louis Blanche, and began his film career in the late 1940s. In film he has primarily played character roles. When not appearing in films, Blanche frequently performed live in music halls and cabarets. He also occasionally wrote theatrical farces, revues, songs. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1952
Minuit... Quai De Bercy gets off to a violent start when a gorgeous concierge (Lysiane Rey) is knifed to death. Since the girl made an enemy of everyone she ever met, there's no shortage of suspects. Police inspector Kieffer (Erich von Stroheim), who despite his surly demeanor is the soul of compassion, tries to ferret out enough clues to identify the guilty party. He is "helped" by amateur female detective Irene (Madeleine Robinson), who's not as scatterbrained as she seems. When asked why he spoke his lines in French films slower than his dialogue in English-speaking films, Erich von Stroheim replied "It keeps me on the screen longer." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Madeleine Robinson, Francis Blanche, (more)
- 1953
A bevy of beautiful strippers team up with a handful of risqué comedians in this feature that documents a typical burlesque show from 1953. Filmed at the Follies Theater in Los Angeles, CA, Peek-a-Boo includes pulse-quickening dance numbers from Venus (billed as "the World's Most Exciting Body"), Virginia Valentine, Suzette, Jennie Lee, and Sherry Winters, with additional routines from the DuPonts and the glamorous hoofers of the Peek-a-Boo Lovlies. Funnymen Leon DeVoe, Jack Mann, Billy Foster, and Johnny Maloney deliver the laughs, and Pat O'Shea's vocals add some class to the proceedings. While a bit more daring in its humor than most of its brethren and willing to let its dancers briefly go without pasties, Peek-a-Boo did undergo a brief bit of prerelease censorship that removed the punch line from a comedy routine, which still appears in bowdlerized form on all existing prints. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- 1958
Swinging like a pendulum between comedy and drama, this tale by director Henri Decoin concerns a lady lawyer with a tendency to hit the bottle. She takes on a difficult case considering her own weakness -- she is to defend a young man who has killed his alcoholic father. Challenged to the limit, in the end it is love that sees her through the hurdles. Well-acted and sophisticated, the story still does not run much below the surface of each protagonist. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Henri Vidal, Michèle Morgan, (more)
- 1958
Some songs are mixed into this uneven comedy by director Jean Boyer, a story about an off-the-wall waiter (Darry Cowl in a good performance) who has taken out a hefty life-insurance policy. Once this news gets into the wrong hands -- that is, the hands of those who might benefit from his demise -- there are several attempts on his life. Due to the inscrutable movement of Fate, all of these attempts fail miserably. But what happens to the would-be assassins is another story entirely. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Darry Cowl, Line Renaud, (more)
Francois Perier, Peter vanEyck, and Anouk Aimee star in this tense tale of five highly skilled thieves who all pool their resources in hopes of pulling off the perfect heist. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- 1958
In this light comedy, Jean-Marc Thibault plays Marc, a motorcycle cop who has the usual load of problems, including the bureaucracy he has to deal with now and again. But among his biggest problems is his inept brother-in-law Roger (Roger Pierre) who also wants to join the force and be like Marc. In spite of their unlikely pairing, the two manage to successfully unhinge a ring of spies, plus pull off any number of impossible adventures. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roger-Pierre, Jean-Marc Thibault, (more)
- 1959
Brigitte Bardot was at the height of her fame when she starred in this engagingly silly military comedy. Babette (Bardot) is a beautiful but unfortunately clueless young French woman who, in 1940, becomes a refugee when she seeks safe haven in England as the Germans move in to occupy her land. Babette is recruited as part of a scheme to help British military intelligence foil a German plot to invade England. The idea is for Babette to use her good looks to win the confidence of German officers and learn their secrets; however, despite her enthusiasm, Babette's striking ineptitude when it comes to military espionage makes her as much of a threat as an asset to Allied forces. Babette s'en va-t-en Guerre (released in the United States as Babette Goes To War) also stars Ronald Howard, Jacques Charrier, and Michael Cramer. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brigitte Bardot, Jacques Charrier, (more)
- 1959
In this French drama a horse dealer is quite surprised when one of his mares foals a green colt. The verdant critter brings his family fame and fortune. When the mare dies, her picture is hung in a prominent place in the house. It is not long after her death, that the dealer dies, leaving his land to his two sons. Things are well until a jealous neighbor turns them in to the Prussians. When the boy's mother gives herself to a Prussian officer to save her son, she does not realize that her son and his friends are under the bed. The lad swears to have revenge on the traitorous neighbor, and indeed he does. Fifteen years later, the boy seduces his neighbor's daughter. Unfortunately his brother, not knowing of his mother's disgrace, nominates the wicked neighbor for mayor. The vengeful brother is even more enraged when he discovers that the neighbor's family has known about the betrayal all along. To add insult to injury, his daughter has fallen in love with the neighbor's son! Unable to bear it any longer, the brother forces the neighbor's son under his bed and makes him listen to the love-making between the brother and the boy's mother (who willingly sacrifices her honor for him.) ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bourvil, Francis Blanche, (more)
Love and the Frenchwoman (La Francaise et L'Amour) concentrates on the nature of love by illustrating seven separate aspects of the emotion. In "Childhood," 9-year old Pierre-Jean Vaillard suffers a traumatic experience when he takes his parents' "cabbage patch" theory of conception too literally. In "Adolescence," a little girl (Annie Sinigalla) constructs an elaborate fantasy world on the occasion of her first kiss. "Virginity" is a study in frustration, as betrothed couple Valerie Lagrange and Pierre Michel agonizingly await their wedding-night consummation of their ardor. "Marriage" finds a union ending almost before it begins as a pair of newlyweds (Marie-Jose Nat and Claude Rich) bicker all the way to their honeymoon rendezvous. "Adultery" allows husband Paul Meurisse the opportunity to calmly provide an object lesson to his wife's lover Jean-Paul Belmondo. In "Divorce", a couple (Annie Girardot and Francois Pierer) find that it's impossible to have a "civilized" breakup. And in "A Woman Alone," bigamist Robert Lamoreaux meets his Waterloo in the forms of Martine Carol and Sylvia Montfort. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Darry Cowl, Sophie Desmarets, (more)
- 1960
Meant primarily for the moppets who naturally love animals, this conventional story by director Edmond Sechan concerns Medard (Renato Raschel), a hard-working zoo keeper, and a talking bear (Gaucha). Medard has his problems because his boss Chappius (Francis Blanche) is a despot whose only pleasure in life is making Medard's life miserable whenever he can. Once Medard discovers that one particular bear can talk, he tries to convince others of his discovery -- to no avail. But the bear opens up to Medard and tells him that he is pining for a lovely polar bear just outside of his reach, thanks to zoo barriers. The compassionate Medard manages to bring the talking bear and the object of his affections together for one brief night, and in return he gets an unexpected reward from an unexpected quarter. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- 1960
The issue of a marriage dying of sexual boredom is raised in this routine drama, one of the earlier films by Polish-French director Jean-Pierre Mocky. Pierre (Jean Kosta) has perhaps been married too long. He has lost interest in the intimate, personal side of his relationship with his wife yet he wants to follow the dictates of socially acceptable behavior. The result is that he stays married and faithful. In the meantime, his wife Annette (Juliette Meyniel) tries to reawaken the flames of romantic love but the fire fizzles because all ardor seems definitively dead. Ironically, it is Annette in the end, who solves the problem. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Juliette Mayniel, Francis Blanche, (more)
- 1961
An undistinguished, low-budget costume drama about a classical topic in Roman history, L'Enlevement des Sabines, by Richard Pottier, chronicles the problem of the men in early Rome. In fact, that is the problem -- there are only men in early Rome. Their leader is the son of the war god Mars and so the tendency is to fight first and ask questions later. But among the Sabine women who do not live so far away are some very attractive females. Needless to say, the Romans see the answer to their problem, though in the end the answer does avert a war between the two sites. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mylène Demongeot, Roger Moore, (more)
- 1961
In this mystery, a nouveau-riche Frenchman returns to his Parisian home after finding a fortune in Africa. He is looking for a wife and begins advertising in the newspaper. Instead he finds himself victimized by con-artists. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dawn Addams, Jean Servais, (more)
- 1961
This is an interesting but no more than routine drama by director Raoul Andre about the fragile nature of sanity when one is under extreme duress. Set during World War II in France, the story begins when a resistance fighter is given shelter in an asylum by a friend who manages the institution. Soon after, the manager is arrested by the Gestapo, which gets the resistance fighter involved. He finds the informer who set his friend up and kills him. But then no one will believe his story about the informer and he becomes desperate enough to start losing his own mental balance. A young doctor and the daughter of one of the inmates help him keep it together, but he knows he cannot continue like this for long. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Francis Blanche, Louise Carletti, (more)
- 1962
In this crime drama, an amiable, popular middle-age man (Bernard Blier) abruptly changes when he heads out for a nice picnic, sees a half-naked girl, makes a pass at her, gets rejected, and kills her. No one is the wiser and her lover ends up taking the rap. During the ensuing trial, the real killer finds himself on the jury. As he listens, his conscience begins to bother him and he helps get the defendant acquitted but the town community refuses to accept it. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bernard Blier, Danièle Delorme, (more)
