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- 1964
In this French comedy from director Edouard Molinaro, a young Jean-Paul Belmondo stars as Fernand, a groom-to-be who is dissuaded from stepping up to the altar by his two friends after they terrify him with their personal marriage horror stories. Antoine immediately ditches his bride and heads for Greece, but not before giving his friend Antoine (Jean-Claude Brialy) his honeymoon cruise tickets. Aboard the boat, Antoine meets and falls in love. Meanwhile, Fernand falls in love with a swindler and becomes determined to marry her. Also featuring a 21-year-old Catherine Deneuve, La Chasse A L'Homme was released in the United States in 1965 under the title Male Hunt. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean-Claude Brialy, (more)
- 1963
This feature takes a comedic look at how four women lose their virginity. Among the scenarios are a couple who can't bring themselves to make love before marriage and a woman marrying for money while keeping her first love on a string. An inept couple begin a hilarious honeymoon night, and a teenage girl decides it is time to give in to her hormone heavy boyfriend. When she finds him drunk and unable to perform, she picks up a stranger for sex. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Aznavour, Gérard Blain, (more)
- 1963
This crime comedy finds ex-gangster Fernand (Lino Ventura) receiving a call from a dying friend, a mob boss nicknamed "The Mexican" (Jacques Dumesnil). The doomed mobster talks Fernand into taking care of some criminal business and looking after his soon-to-be-married daughter (Sabine Sinjen). When a longtime mobster heavy, Volfoni (Bernard Blier) takes exception to Fernand for being an outsider, they come after Fernand who is equal to the task. He defends himself in a series of comical killings from the onslaught of the mob. Writer Albert Simonin adapted this comedy from his book Grisby or Not Grisby, with sharp dialogue written by Michel Audiard. Both Simonin and Audiard would later work on director Georges Lautner's Les Barbouzes/The Great Spy Chase which, along with Les Tontons Flingueurs, would again feature actors Francis Blanche, Lino Ventura and Bernard Blier. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lino Ventura, Bernard Blier, (more)
- 1963
Director Jacques Baratier's Sweet and Sour is an independently produced project with a surprising amount of European movie-industry input. Guy Bedos, a Brando wannabe, plays one of several young French cineastes who take to the streets to make improvisational movies. The "cinema verite" quality of the film is somewhat undercut by the presence of major stars: Anna Karina, Simone Signoret, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Monica Vitti, Claude Brasseur, and many others. After several "spontaneous" vignettes -- a street tennis game, a striptease lesson, a West Side Story style gang rumble -- Guy Bedos announces he will go to Hollywood to film the life of Voltaire. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Guy Bedos, Sophie Daumier, (more)
- 1963
Two feuding groups sweep up a customs official in their nefarious dealings. ~ All Movie Guide
- 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)
- 1962
This comedy pokes fun at horror movies as it chronicles the exploits of two clumsy real estate salesmen who try to sell a piece of land that has a corpse upon its premises. Eventually they manage to solve the crime. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1962
Director Jean-Pierre Mocky takes jabs at the arrogant attitudes of the social and corporate elite in this routine satire about four men vying for control of a company. After the president of a dairy cooperative accidentally drowns, rather ignominiously, a quartet of vice-presidents start to compete for the top position. The ones who are married are aided and abetted by their wives, and their main combative tactic is to downgrade their opponents in any way they can. Meanwhile, a local woman is in love with them and seems to be the only citizen around not corrupted or venal. During this farcical process, everyone gets sent up -- from the Boy Scouts to retired military men. Homosexuality, ditsy women, and balding men are also subject to satire. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Francis Blanche, Pierre Dac, (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)
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
