Bernard Blier Movies

French/Israeli filmmaker Moshe Mizrahi wrote and directed this adapation of the fanciful comic novel by Albert Cohen. Set in 1938, it tells the farcical story of a band of five French speaking Greek Jews who seek to have their status as self-appointed ambassadors of a Palestinian Zionist state recognized by the League of Nations in Geneva. The five are played by veteran French comic actors Pierre Richard, Bernard Blier, Jacques Villeret, Jacques Dufilho and Jean-Luc Bideau. The film follows their rambling odyssey from their native Greek island to Marseilles to Geneva, where they involve a Polish Jewish immigrant (played by actor/singer Charles Aznavour in their scheme. Among the five would-be ambassadors, Richard has the showiest part as the blustery title character. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this slightly science-fictiony romantic comedy, Ivan is a nice but rather clueless young man who works for a woman about his own age, a tough and ruthless person who is all business. He is so clueless that he is about to marry this unsavory person, much to the dismay of his ex-ballerina mother. He is doing his banking one day when a group of robbers comes in, stealing not only from the bank, but from its customers. He narrowly manages to escape them by heading for the basement and taking a doorway he never noticed before which should lead to the basement of the Chinese restaurant next door. Instead, he finds himself on the beach on another planet, one with two suns. There, he meets a professor and his daughter. The girl falls in love with him at first sight and returns through the doorway after him to persuade him to marry her. Other denizens of the second world also go through the doorway, and before the end of the show, a number of unlikely marriages have been proposed and accepted. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this confusing, surreal, and slow-paced drama that swings back and forth from strange to farcical, Robert (Alain Delon) meets Donatienne (Nathalie Baye) on a train. She tells him a story about a woman and a man who meet on a train and subsequently spend a night - only one night - in a glorious sexual encounter before they part forever. He is so taken with her that he ends up in her mountain chalet, not just for one night, but for many - drinking beer and forgetting about his wife in Paris. Donatienne then has sexual relations with all the men in her neighborhood - and the film steps fully into a bizarre world in which neither Robert nor Donatienne can honestly relate to each other. The mystery about what is going on is revealed in the end, but by then the film - verbose, inscrutable, and artificial - may have alienated more than one viewer. On the other hand, the performances of Delon and Baye stand out against this flawed backdrop, an achievement recognized at the 1984 Cesars when Delon won the Best Actor award for his role as Robert. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Professional soldier Bernard Giraudeau is enmeshed in an affair with the beautiful but very much married Laura Antonelli. Transferred to a remote outpost, Giraudeau discovers to his chagrin that the only woman in the region (Valeria D'Obici) is about as appealing as a plate of pickles. Even so, Giraudeau falls madly in love with the woman, utterly forgetting Antonelli. He also forgets that he's a human being at fade-out time, metamorphosing into an epileptic bear! Perhaps Passion of Love made more sense in its original French-language version, Passione D'Amore. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Argante (Alberto Sordi) is an eccentric recluse who suffers from a malady of real and imagined gastrointestinal difficulties in this tasteless, low-brow comedy. While his doctor (Bernard Blier) tries various cures, Argante exposes his unfaithful wife (Marina Vlady) and makes peace with his estranged daughter (Giuliana De Sio). The viewer is subjected to endless scenes of enemas as the film caters to the lowest levels of bathroom humor. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

The title Serie Noire refers to a popular French mystery series, and literally means "Black Series." The story is based on American author Jim Thompson's hardboiled detective story A Hell of a Woman, and is close in spirit to the U.S. film noir mysteries of the 1940s. Frank Poupart (Patrick Dewaere) is a 30-year-old loser, a salesman who is barely scraping by, whose wife has just left him "just to think things over." He meets Mona (Marie Trintignant), a quiet, dreamy 15-year-old girl whose aunt has offered her to him for his sexual pleasure in return for a sweater. They become lovers, and both of them see a way out of their impoverished dead-end existence when Mona tells him that her aunt (who is also her landlady) has a large stash of money hidden away. They decide to kill her, and also kill a Greek boxer who owes Frank money, making it look like a murder/suicide. When Frank's wife returns to him, eager to begin their marriage again, he kills her out of sheer frustration. Later he is blackmailed by Staplin (Bernard Blier), his employer, and is left with no loot, no wife, three heinous crimes on his hands, and a clueless adolescent girlfriend. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

After his family tries to kill him and he has been pronounced dead, Michel (Klaus Kinski) returns to vex them. He presents each one with a voodoo doll, warning of their fate. Wandering over the streets of Paris, Michel is the haunted and hunted, as he himself hunts his villainous kin. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

A pair of elderly men, friends for 40 years, find their relationship stressed when they set up housekeeping together in order to save money. Exploring similar ground to that covered in Neil Simon's play The Odd Couple, which spawned a movie and a television series, Ce Cher Victor explores the tragic and dramatic aspects of the story. The two friends, meek, sensitive Anselme (Bernard Blier) and blustering Victor (Jacques Dufilho) are swiftly driven apart by circumstances. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide