Bernard Blier Movies

This suspensful drama finds ten members of the underground uniting fifteen years after the end of World War II. Nine men and a woman come together to expose a traitor among them. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a Parisian vagabond decides to get himself arrested so he can spend the winter in a warm, cozy jail. Unfortunately his attempts fail until his pal shows him how to steal purebred dogs and then bring them back for a reward. He does well, and decides to winter in the Riviera, but first he must figure out how to keep from getting arrested since another "pal" has ratted on him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this standard wartime melodrama, forty-two-year-old Danielle Darrieux plays Jeanne, an unmarried, older woman with a miserable mother who harps on the supposed "fact" that Jeanne is ugly. Jeanne comes into close association with Pierre (27-year-old Jean-Claude Brialy) a young blind man who is hunted by the Germans and temporarily hiding out in Jeanne's house. Jeanne and Pierre are irresistibly attracted to each other, and a genuine love develops and deepens between them. Unfortunately, Jeanne's mother cannot leave her alone, and circumstances contrive to make her run away from the house -- leaving her relationship in limbo, at least for the time being. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Crime and Punishment is Dostoyevsky's story about the Nietzchean student Raskolnikov, played in this 1958 French film version by Bernard Bleier. Raskolnikov believes himself above such bourgeois concepts as morality and conscience, which leads to his murder of a hateful old woman. A perceptive police inspector (Jean Gabin) wears down Raskolnikov's sociopathic tendencies, until the student--who has a conscience after all--breaks down and confesses. Updated and set in Paris, this adaptation of Crime and Punishment has been released in the US as The Most Dangerous Sin. Other versions of the Dostoyevsky original have starred actors as wildly diverse as Peter Lorre and George Hamilton. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Victor Hugo's monumental novel Les Miserables has been filmed so often that sometimes it's hard to tell one version from another. One of the best and most faithful adaptations is this 240-minute French production, starring Jean Gabin as the beleagured Jean Valjean. Arrested for a petty crime, Valjean spends years 20 in the brutal French penal system. Even upon his release, his trail is dogged by relentless Inspector Javert (Bernard Blier). Valjean's efforts to create a new life for himself despite the omniprescence of Javert is meticulously detailed in this film, which utilizes several episodes from the Hugo original that had hitherto never been dramatized. Originally released as a single film, Les Miserables was usually offered as a two-parter outside of France. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Bernard Blier plays a gendarme and Philipe Nicaud co-stars as Blier's bartender buddy in En Legitime Defense. When Nicaud murders a gangster in self-defense, he runs off in a blind panic. Blier endeavors to convince Nicaud to turn himself over to the authorities, and at the same time struggles to save his pal from mob retaliation. Like many French crime melodramas of the late 1950s, En Legitime Defense is heavily influenced by Hollywood's film noir genre of the 1940s. The film was atmospherically lensed on location in the less-than-fashionable Pigalle district. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Jean Gabin stars as Noel, patriarch of a large and wealthy family of industrialists. Noel sees no reason not to run his home in the same ruthless, coldhearted manner in which he runs his business. "Black sheep" Lucien (Pierre Brasseur), however, sees Noel for the pompous fraud that he is. And it is Lucien who topples Noel's dictatorship in a climactic series of cutthroat maneuvers on the stock exchange. Based on actual people and events, Les Grandes Families concludes with the sort of profound tragedy that is merely the logical extension of "business as usual." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Quand la Femme S'en Mele (When the Woman Butts In) stars French film favorite Edwige Feuillere as a high-class gangster's moll named Maine. When Maine's first husband and daughter pay a visit, it's an awkward time for our heroine and her current amour, gang boss Godot (Jean Servais). In addition to fielding a lot of embarrassing questions, Godot also has to deal with a pesky turf war with a rival mobster. Not that the ex-husband is a paragon of virtue: he's busy trying to get even with a crooked business associate. Billed fourth in the cast of Quand la Femme s'en Mele is Alain Delon, who, according to contemporary viewers, "shows promise". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The raincoated gent of the title is horse-faced French comedian Fernandel, who plays luckless jazz musician Albert Constantin. Thanks to the chicanery of a slick gangster boss, Albert finds himself up to his ears in murder and treachery. The farcical elements of the film are juxtaposed with moments of startling violence, but in the end laughter wins out. American actor John McGiver, in France to film his supporting role in Billy Wilder's Love in the Afternoon, is herein cast as a pivotal character. The Man in the Raincoat (L'Homme à l'Impermeable) was not officially remade as The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe (1972), though the similarities between the two films are quite pronounced. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The title of this French "reality" drama, which translates to Before the Deluge, is a play on Louis XVI's famous prognostication, "Apres moi, le deluge." Set in 1950, the film concentrates on five Parisian adolescents. Certain that the next war will herald the apocalypse, the youngster make plans to run off to a desert island and set up a new society. This, however, will require money, which is why the boys decide to pull off a "necessary" robbery. Idealism collapses in the face of cold reality, as the five youths suffer from the consequences of their actions. Avant le Deluge was one of a group of films cowritten by director Andre Cayatte and Charles Spaak which endeavored to explore the touchy social issues of the day: others in the Cayatte-Spaak canon include the euthanasia-themed Justice est Faite and the capital-punishment tract Nous sommes tous des assassins. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Franciolin) FI An all-star lineup of actors and directors was responsible for the omnibus feature Secrets D'Alcove. The film is made up of four separate playlets; the only "character" common to the four stories is a huge bed. The characters whose behavior is governed by being in close proximity of this bed include a soldier (Richard Todd), a philanderer (Vittorio de Sica), a professional co-respondent (Dawn Addams), a couresan (Martine Carol) and a truckdriver (Mouloudji). Naturally, the screenplay contrives to have the film's female characters appear as underdressed as possible, none more so than the curvaceous Martine Carol. The basic premise of Secrets D'Alcove was later adopted, after a fashion, by the American TV anthology series Love American Style (1979-72). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Few American theatres in 1952 would have run Je T'ai ete Trois Fois under its highly suggestive original title, which translates as I Did it Three Times. The film was directed by the inimitable Sacha Guity, who also co-wrote the script and played the leading role of elderly actor Jean Renneval. A notorious roue, Renneval is currently making time with the wife (Lana Marconi) of a ripe-for-cuckolding merchant named Henri (Bernard Blier). Having already been married twice to cheating spouses, Henri isn't psychologically prepared to find his third wife in the arms of Renneval. Fortunately, the aging actor is dressed as a clergyman (the part he's playing in his latest production), and thus is able to wriggle out of an uncomfortable situation by preaching an impromptu sermon about trust and fidelity! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide