Alexandra Stewart Movies

Alain Cluny is Balthazar, a bumbling middle-aged intellectual who spouts off from time to time about leftist causes, usually to his current girlfriend. Then Edwarda (Bernadette Lafont), who is active in the political underground, comes into his life. From that point on, he begins to act on his beliefs. Edwarda's underground political action group stages a little drama to test Balthazar's commitment and reliability, putting him through an interrogation by what appear to him to be French secret police. Having passed this test, he is given a real assignment. This film is a comedy with elements of satire, and it explores the humor to be found in left-wing pretentiousness of all kinds. This is a French language film, with no dubbing or subtitles. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Nicholas (Frederic de Pasquale) is a conscience-stricken international news photographer. Revolted by what he has seen in wars in Africa and Indochina, he leaves his job and his girlfriend for a job doing sports coverage. While covering a rugby match between the French and Irish teams in Ireland, he runs into his old American girlfriend, and their affair begins again. As she is very down-to-earth, she helps him begin to sort things out. In an interesting parallel to the story, most of the scenes are framed as if they were to appear as still photos. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Paul (Helmut Schneider) is the villainous owner of the drug company Kemek. The mystery begins when Paul searches for a new mind-control drug that his mistress has stolen. Traveling to Italy, she plants the drug on an unsuspecting American. Both fall victim to the effects that control their lives without their knowledge or consent. The Modern Jazz Quartet and John Lewis provide the soundtrack. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

An artist grows hateful of commercial demands on his questionable talents when his friend and artist commits suicide. He puts the blame for his friend's death on an art critic and a shady art dealer. He is able to take out his frustrations on the pretentious critic at a party. When an elderly man moves into the boarding house, he brings a machine he invented that can make people realize their subconscious dreams. Hoodlums break in and steal the machine, telling the old man that the young artist is also involved in the crime. This leads to the older man's death and puts more pressure on the artist's already fragile mental state. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

A curious young physician can't resist looking through a hole in the wall into the neighboring apartment. He becomes a voyeur as he watches an amorous couple having sex. When he looks through the hole another time and fears the girl is dead, he manages to enter her apartment, finding her chained to the shower rod and drugged. He alienates his girlfriend when he has an affair with the rescued neighbor girl. A final look through the hole in the wall finds the young doctor staring down the barrel of a gun. The screenplay was written collaboratively by Wim Verstappen and directors Pim De La Parra and Martin Scorsese. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

This Francois Truffaut thriller is based ona novel by William Irish (aka Cornell Woolrich), whose books had been adapted by Alfred Hitchcock on many previous occasions. Jeanne Moreau stars as a woman whose fiancé is nastily murdered by five men. Utilizing a series of disguises, the cool-customer Moreau tracks down all five culprits, sexually enslaves them, and then engineers their deaths. The ominous musical score was written by Bernard Herrmann, another frequent Hitchcock collaborator. The Bride Wore Black was initially released in France as La Mariee etait en Noir. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Richard Attenborough, David Hemmings and Alexandra Stewart play three con artists planning a big-time scam. The object is to sell ammunition to a group of African militants -- or at least to pretend to. The trick is to keep at least one step ahead of the militants, lest the tricksters end up full of holes. A serviceable Len Deighton espionage novel was the source for Only When I Larf, which hooked up the material with "mod" gags about '60s fads and foibles. In the same spirit, the usually straightforward director Basil Dearden makes like Richard Lester, with a multitude of jump cuts, zoom-ins and hand-held shots. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Man Called Gringo (Sie Nannten ihn Gringo) is a German western, with the Alps standing in for the Rockies. Crooked lawyer Helmut Schmidt makes it his mission in life to destroy an old rancher. Schmidt hires Gringo (Dan Martin), a rootless soldier of fortune, to either drive the rancher off his property or kill him. But Gringo turns out to be the rancher's long-long illegitimate son. The whole mess is solved by the deux-ex-machina appearance of a shadowy stranger. Alexandra Stewart, George Gotz and Peter Tordy costar in this psychological oater. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Often described as a French New Wave film made in Hollywood, Arthur Penn's 1965 art movie enters the unsettlingly paranoid world of a nightclub comic on the run from the Mob. Having fooled around with the wrong blonde and gambled himself into an unpayable debt, an entertainer (Warren Beatty) flees to Chicago, where he hides out and changes his name to Mickey One. He hooks up with Jenny (Alexandra Stewart) and Castle (Hurd Hatfield), the owner of the nightclub Xanadu, but he cannot shake the paralyzing conviction that he's being pursued no matter where he is. After being beaten by unknown assailants, Mickey finally decides that escape is impossible, so he might as well just do his thing. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Maurice Ronet plays an alcoholic writer, Alain Leroy, who is on the verge of suicide (his character is based on writer Jacques Rigaut, who killed himself in 1929). The psychiatrist assigned to Leroy is no help, advising his patient to seek a reconciliation with his wife, who is still smarting from Leroy's recent liaison with Lydia (Lena Skerla). Still obsessed with the notion of taking his own life, Leroy plans to stage his demise on July 23. A last-ditch effort to jolly himself out of his doldrums fails, and Leroy, with a picture of Marilyn Monroe at his side, snuffs himself out. Though a case study of a man victimized by his own isolationism, The Fire Within has some surprising random optimistic moments. The French title for The Fire Within is Le Feu Follet, which was also the title of the novel by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle (another suicide!) from which this film was adapted. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This overdone German film relies on a repetitive plot centered around bedroom antics worthy of daytime dramas. A call girl (Hildegard Knef) teaches the "ways of love" to a boy (Thomas Fritsch). The boy uses the knowledge to seduce the young wife (Alexandra Stewart) of his professor (Martin Held). Meanwhile, the professor carries on with his secretary (Daliah Lavi). The story continues in like fashion, with little else to give it strength. ~ Lucinda Ramsey, All Movie Guide

RoGoPaG is an omnibus of short films by Roberto Rossellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Ugo Gregoretti and Jean- Luc Godard. Each episode is introduced by a quotation from the Bible which the episode illustrates with a fiction of contemporary life. Rossellini's film, "Illibatezza" ("Virginity"), is the tale of Anna-Maria Rosanna Schiaffino, a beautiful, demure stewardess courted by Joe, an American businessman on a trip to Bangkok. Pasolini's film, "La Ricotta" ("Ricotta Cheese"), concerns a film crew shooting the passion of Christ. The film's director, played by Orson Welles, gives a hilarious interview to a journalist who comes on the set. The scenes from the passion are shot as recreations of renaissance paintings and the landscapes are filled with beautiful boys. Godard's "Il Nuovo Mondo" ("The New World") follows a couple, played by Jean-Marc Bory and Alexandra Stewart, whose relationship ends just after an atomic bomb is exploded high over Paris. The film uses the Paris of the early 1960s as the city of some indefinite future, a technique Godard would use again in Alphaville. Gregoretti's contribution "Il Polo Ruspante" ("The Free Range Chicken") cuts between a speech by a marketing expert (Ugo Tognazzi) and a family's Sunday outing. The expert speaks on mechanisms for promoting sales by keeping the consumer dissatisfied. The family takes a drive through traffic, negotiates an impersonal highway restaurant, and considers buying some land. ~ Louis Schwartz, All Movie Guide