Alexandra Stewart Movies
Canadian leading lady Alexandra Stewart studied acting in Paris, where she launched her film career in 1958's Les Monards. An intriguing combination of high intelligence and earthy sensuality, Alexandra quickly became a favorite amongst the New Wave directors of the 1960s. She may well be the only actress who can boast of having been directed by Francois Truffaut (The Bride Wore Black, Day for Night), Roger Vadim (Les Liaisons Dangereuse), Otto Preminger (Exodus), Arthur Penn (Mickey One), and the artist formerly known as Prince (Under a Cherry Moon). On television, Alexandra Stewart was seen in the miniseries Mistral's Daughter (1984) and Sins (1986). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1982
- R
Giovanni (Beppe Grillo) is a mysterious hitchhiker of unknown origins, oddly out of place in the modern world since he is quite humble in his attitude, equally compassionate to everyone, and unselfish. Giovanni is given a lift by a priest (Fernando Rey) who looks like he deals cards under the table but has the noble project of publishing the life of Jesus Christ as a novel, and he needs to find some appropriate-looking young man to pose for book illustrations as the Christian Savior himself. Giovanni, it seems, fits the bill just perfectly. As Giovanni encounters the darker side of human failings, his abilities to apparently work miracles and to convince a hardcore terrorist to change her ways, set him apart -- as does his unique, non-violent philosophy. The less-than-ideal priests cannot identify with Giovanni's viewpoints, on the contrary, they begin to conclude that he is not playing with a full deck and they have some definite plans for how to take care of this aberrant loner. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Beppe Grillo, Maria Schneider, (more)
- 1982
Titled after a song cycle by Mussorgsky, Sans Soleil is a 1982 nonlinear essay film by elusive documentary filmmaker Chris Marker. It's a collage of images gathered from Japan, Africa, Iceland, San Francisco, and France -- all presented without direct sound. The soundtrack consists of occasional spells of electronic music while an unseen woman's voice (Alexandra Stewart) narrates letters written by a possibly fictional traveler in poetic verse. Beginning with the phrase "He wrote me," each segment explores some philosophical inquiry of matters as broad as modern culture, technology, consciousness, Japanese television, and even the act of filming itself. Some of the first images include children in Iceland, a ferry in Hokkido, a carnival in Guinea-Bissau, girls in Cape Verde, and a shrine to cats in Tokyo. There's also a creepy JFK robot, petrified animals left by desert drought, and teenagers dancing in a public square. The seemingly miscellaneous footage is made up of archive clips, synthesized video sequences, and some images collected by Marker's colleagues. It's randomly assembled, jumping from one continent to another in the same breath. It remains one of the director's masterpiece accomplishments. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- 1981
The time is WW II in the Emilia-Romagna countryside in Italy, and an American pilot's plane has just broken down near the farmhouse of a middle-aged widow, Francesca (Mariangela Melato) and her three young daughters. The widow has recently come back to her family's land and is picking up where she left off with long-lost friends and neighbors. The downed pilot, Ray (Anthony Franciosa), finds a safe refuge in the widow's farmhouse -- he needs a place to hide until the war ends and it is safe for him to join his military unit. Ray's presence brings out the wild dreams Francesca and her daughters and friends have had about a magical America, a country celebrated in song and dance -- not just in American films, but right there in the farmhouse and its vicinity. Ray is regaled with hearty interpretations of "Pennies from Heaven" and "Jeepers Creepers", and the neighbors and daughters have a riotous good time with the dancing and singing. In-between the light-hearted portrayal of America and its image, Francesca begins to fall in love with Ray, while suffering her own personal anguish as she tries to hide the death of her husband from her three daughters by saying he is in America. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mariangela Melato, Anthony Franciosa, (more)
- 1981
This futuristic adventure stars Lee Majors as a former racing champ who reassembles his old Porsche and drives to California in a world where cars have been outlawed by the powers that be. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lee Majors, Burgess Meredith, (more)
Agency tackles the question of the efficiency of media manipulation. An unscrupulous advertising agency, in league with equally untrustworthy political campaign manager Robert Mitchum, plants subliminal messages in its TV commercials. Just as Vance Packard warned in the 1950s expose The Hidden Persuaders, these hidden messages persuade the viewers to vote for Mitchum's candidate. Given the potency of the the film's premise, it's disappointing to watch director George Gaczender handle the material (based on a novel by Paul Gottleib) is so cut-and-dried a fashion. But Mitchum is good, as are his costars Valerie Perrine, Lee Majors, Saul Rubinek and Alexandra Stewart. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Mitchum, Lee Majors, (more)
- 1981
- R
Sexual obsession provides the basis of this taut thriller, an adaptation of a Romain Gary novel. The story centers upon a prominent financier who must fight to save his crumbling business empire and his rapidly fading manhood. The obsession begins when the impotent magnate begins dreaming that a handsome gypsy is making love to his much younger girlfriend. He cannot get the dream out of his head and so goes to a Parisian madam to see if he can make the fantasy real. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Harris, Jeanne Moreau, (more)
- 1981
- R
An ambitious Parisian fashion designer finds romance and great career success in this story about the life and loves of the legendary couturier, Coco (Gabrielle) Chanel. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marie-France Pisier, Timothy Dalton, (more)
In this complex spy caper, Nicole (Genevieve Bujold) is a Canadian broadcast journalist working on assignment in the former U.S.S.R. She is there to cover a visit by the Canadian prime minister, but along the way she discovers an unethical experimentation on children involving the use of steroids. She is also involved in smuggling out a girl for emergency brain surgery and develops a romantic liaison with Lyosha (Michael York), a bureaucrat in the Soviet press corps. A Jewish businessman she knows just happens to be in Russia, and she asks him to help her in the smuggling attempt. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Geneviève Bujold, Michael York, (more)
- 1980
- R
In this grim horror movie, the only one ever made by director John Huston, patients from a psychiatrist's phobia group are being murdered in ways that reflect their deepest fears. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Michael Glaser, John Colicos, (more)
- 1980
Le Soleil en Face is a somewhat glib drama about a serious matter -- death. In this case, the death of a writer. Marat (Jean-Pierre Cassel) is a retired novelist living in ease and comfort in his own villa in southern Portugal. His writing has essentially dried up, but he has a good life with his wife Genevieve (Stephane Audran) and two attractive nieces who take care of him -- one is actually his lover. This idyll crashes to the ground when Genevieve finds out that Marat has incurable cancer, and at first, she tries to keep the diagnosis a secret but is not successful. The results are disastrous. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean-Pierre Cassel, Stéphane Audran, (more)
- 1978
In an attempt to sell his manuscript, a writer tries to persuade a prospective publisher that cats are ultimately evil by providing him with three different stories of kitty brutality in this anthology of horror. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- 1978
The French Riviera felt the heavy hand of German occupation much later than the rest of the country, and was a haven for wealthy misfits who had no other place to go to escape that regime. Despite the certain knowledge that their doom is approaching, the characters in this film party and quarrel as if their world were not disintegrating rapidly. In the main story, Konrad (Michel Piccoli), an Austrian surgeon, has fled his newly Nazified country for the Riviera. There, he encounters Laura (Lara Wendel) the 13-year-old daughter of an anti-fascist Italian Contessa (Claudia Cardinale). When the girl perceives that he loves her, she offers herself to him. Horrified, he sends her away. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Piccoli, Claudia Cardinale, (more)
- 1978
- R
In Hungary, 12-year-old Andras Vadya supported himself during World War II by serving as a pimp for prostitutes. Once the war is over, he tries his hand at a number of different jobs, but has a sexual fixation on "older" women. Andras (Tom Berenger) tells the story of seven of his affairs. One affair, when he was still a quite young man, was with Bobbie (Susan Strasberg), a woman whose anti-communist views put her in danger in postwar Hungary. In Praise of Older Women features many sexual scenes and situations. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Berenger, Karen Black, (more)
- 1977
During a business trip to Morocco to finalize a deal to build an ugly modern tourist village on the site of a lovely local town, Jean-Luc (Jean-Claude Biraly), the bank representative, is called on by the architect's wife. She has, it seems, accidentally killed her husband during a spat and needs his help to hide the body. Incredibly, he gives it. Then he returns to Paris with the architect's murderous spouse (Marlene Jobert), who proceeds to turn his life upside down with her blithe spirit and joie de vivre. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marlène Jobert, Jean-Claude Brialy, (more)
- 1975
In Louis Malle's apocalyptic fantasy Black Moon, Lily (Cathryn Harrison, granddaughter of Rex) drives down a lonesome road, and soon finds herself in a alternate world full of non sequiturs and bizarre characters. At times, this looks like a David Lynch film, what with an old woman conversing with a rat, a pack of naked children chasing a pig, a talking unicorn, a strange set of possibly incestuous siblings (one of whom is "underground" film star Joe Dallesandro), and several other warped set pieces. Malle reportedly culled inspiration for the narrative of this film from his own dreams. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cathryn Harrison, Therese Giehse, (more)
- 1974
- PG
Set in the City of Light, this crime melodrama chronicles the attempts of a US drug agent to stop a major drug-lord. Though the agent realizes his three predecessors have been assassinated, and that the French government doesn't necessarily approve of the Yank's harassment of a French citizen, he is determined to succeed. Then a Parisian cop quietly suggests that Anthony Quinn himself hire an assassin to kill the drug lord. He thinks about it long and hard, before agreeing to it. Later he is shocked to learn that the assassin is an old war buddy. The hit man then works overtime to cozy up to the criminal and earn his trust. While he is doing that, the agent learns that events have changed and he must capture the drug lord alive. Unfortunately, he must first find a way to call off the professional killer before it is too late. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anthony Quinn, Michael Caine, (more)
- 1974
In this drama, a young woman with expensive tastes uses unusual methods to confront the corporation and its CEO who controls her rapidly falling corporate stock. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1974
A heroin smuggler gained an unexpected accomplice in the form of a weak TV newsman who loves wine, women and cars. ~ All Movie Guide
Known to English-speaking audiences as Day for Night, La nuit américaine was director François Truffaut's loving and humorous tribute to the communal insanity of making a movie. The film details the making of a family drama called "Meet Pamela" about the tragedy that follows when a young French man introduces his parents to his new British wife. Truffaut gently satirizes his own films with "Meet Pamela"'s overwrought storyline, but the real focus is on the chaos behind the scenes. One of the central actresses is continually drunk due to family problems, while the other is prone to emotional instability, and the male lead (Truffaut regular Jean-Pierre Leaud) starts to act erratically when his intermittent romance with the fickle script girl begins to fail. In addition to all this personal drama, the film is besieged by technical problems, from difficult tracking shots to stubborn animal actors. The inspiration for future satires of movie-making from Living in Oblivion to Irma Vep, La nuit américaine was considered slight by some critics in comparison to earlier Truffaut masterworks, but it went on to win the 1973 Oscar for Best Foreign Film. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jacqueline Bisset, Valentina Cortese, (more)
- 1973
Inspector Van der Valk's investigation of a series of rapes leads him to suspect a gang made up of "untouchable" rich kids. Their gang doesn't need to steal as they are all rich. Instead, they hold sadistic quasi-satanic rituals, wreck the houses of other rich people, and rape women. The boys call themselves "The Ravens"; the girls call themselves the "She-Cats." Egged on by the "She-Cats," the boys' activities escalate until they commit a murder. The inspector knows all this; now he has to prove it. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- 1972
An international group of travelers trek around the world, from France to Brazil and Chile and, finally, to Easter Island, where some of their number are chosen to meet aliens who resemble small suns. One man who was not chosen tags along uninvited. For punishment, he is given the task of guarding the site until the next visit, some 500 years hence. This talky film (in French) features fine travel footage. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Norma Bengell, Françoise Brion, (more)
- 1972
This French thriller is based upon a theory about the conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy. The story begins as a reporter is informed that one of his friends may have been shot by two gunmen in an American car. The reporter goes out looking for his friend, who did not die after the shooting. Along the way he is shot at and beaten up. This does not deter the intrepid journalist who keeps getting closer to the truth. Eventually he learns that the Euro-Mafia and the French Secret police are involved in the shooting. The reporter then encounters an American who tries to dissuade him from pursuing the mystery because it is far too complex to really know the truth. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
