Lino Ventura Movies

Before Greed in the Sun was released to the States by way of MGM, this French/Italian co-production had made the European rounds under the titles 100,000 Dollars au Soleil and Centomilia Dollare al Sol. As any good linguist can gather, the catalyst for this action melodrama is 100,000 dollars---actually 100,000 dollars worth of guns and ammunition, unknowingly transported to African insurrectionists by truck driver Reginald Kernan. Fellow trucker Jean-Paul Belmondo teams with his girlfriend Andrea Parisy to hijack the shipment. Gert Frobe, head of the trucking company, offers Kernan a large reward for the return of the truck and its contents. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In truth, there are two French Detectives in this European crime melodrama. Lino Ventura plays an aging, been-around gumshoe, while Patrick Dewaere is his young, callow and cynical associate. The two detectives don't like each other much at first, but this will change. Their current assignment: getting the goods on a corrupt politician. Occasionally more violent than it needs to be, The French Detective has the twin advantages of authenticity and sincerity. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The feature-film debut of famed director Louis Malle is an interesting, modern film noir with the classic theme of lovers plotting to kill the husband and make it look like suicide (reminiscent of The Postman Always Rings Twice). Jeanne Moreau, as Florence Carala, gives an astonishing performance, perverse but naive as she leads her young lover down a path that can only lead to doom for both of them. Malle and his cinematographer Henri Decae make extensive use of Paris at night, giving the film the feel of claustrophobia and desperation reminiscent of the classic noir films. The excellent score by Miles Davis adds to the entire effect of this mystery thriller. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide

This broad French comedy includes some affectionate parodies of silent film features. Corny (Lino Ventura) is the captain of a rum-running boat during the U.S. Prohibition era, which ended before talking pictures were introduced. In his spare time, he haunts his local cinema, and his favorite actress is the divine Linda (Brigitte Bardot). Through a series of accidents, he finally gets to meet her in the flesh, and woo her. Their romance is obstructed by his bosses and her other suitors, but they keep trying to spend time together. Finally, the demands of stardom intervene. Corny goes back to his boat and sighs over the movie screen as before. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In many ways, this was a courageous film to make about Carlo Dalla Chiesa (played by Lino Ventura), an Italian general who gave his life trying to eliminate Mafia bosses and their supporters. Dalla Chiesa's wife was also murdered when her husband got too close to exposing the truth about the connections between the Mafia, the state, and the banking world. After Dalla Chiesa organized a campaign against the Red Brigades, he was sent to Sicily to clamp down on Mafia activities and bring some of the worst mob leaders to justice. His wife Emmanuela completely supported him in this dangerous undertaking, and during the course of his investigations, Dalla Chiesa began to check out the banks suspected in laundering money for the mob. That level of inquiry brought him a warning phone call from a government minister, and when he refused to stop his three-month investigation, he and his wife were murdered. In an eloquent statement of support for his efforts to combat the Mafia, a long list of sponsors for this film - including local organizations both inside and outside the government, anti-drug groups, and organizations in the cinematic field among many others, were listed in the closing credits. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A criminal on the run finds going home after a decade is harder than he expects in this drama from French filmmaker Claude Sautet. Gangster Abel Davos (Lino Ventura) is wanted for murder in France, and has been living underground in Italy for ten years. Since then, Abel has married Therese (Simone France) and fathered two sons, and he's decided it's time to come home. Abel has planed an elaborate scheme in which he'll steal a fortune to finance his journey and head home with Therese and the boys, but little goes as planned, and he arrives in Paris without his wife and running from the law with two kids in tow. An underworld boss who owes Abel some favors helps him put together a plan to travel across France in an ambulance to avoid suspicion, and recruits a headstrong young gangster, Eric (Jean-Paul Belmondo), to serve as Abel's driver and right-hand-man. En route, Abel tries to settle some old score with criminal associates who betrayed him. Based on a novel by Jose Giovanni, Classe Tous Risques was the first feature film from Sautet, who previously had worked as an assistant director for some of France's most prestigious filmmakers. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Hampered by over-orchestrated music, smeary color photography and (in the English version at least) poor dubbing, this 1963 French/German adaptation of the Kurt Weill-Bertolt Brecht piece The Three Penny Opera nonetheless has its attractions. Not least of these is the central performance of Curt Jurgens as robber captain MacHeath, whose romance with Polly Peachum (June Ritchie), daughter of beggar king J. J. Peachum (Gert Frobe), puts his life in jeopardy. Hildegarde Neff has an effective cameo as whore-ish Pirate Jenny. For the film's American release, distributor Joseph E. Levine hired Sammy Davis Jr. to play the Ballad Singer, who narrates the story, introduces the scenes, and sings the opera's most famous song "Moritat (The Ballad of Mack the Knife)." Unlike the music in the rest of the film, Davis' rendition of "Mack the Knife" is rearranged in Bobby Darin "pop" fashion. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Sebastien Grenier (Lino Ventura), a former French spy, is working as a financial analyst in Zurich and cultivating an on-going relationship with Anna Gretz (Krystyna Janda), a German teaching at the university. Then his peaceful existence starts to disintegrate when he is recruited by a top French intelligence operative (Michel Piccoli) to discover how one of their own secret agents was found out and executed in broad daylight by a gang of terrorists. Sebastien starts to work but is immediately put off by the fact that his contacts are being murdered before he can reach them. As he gets deeper and deeper into the case, he comes to realize that he is being used in an elaborate political scheme, a scheme that leads to the death of Anna and a vow to get the killers who have now ruined what is left of his life. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

This is a minimalist interrogation drama about a wealthy, influential attorney (Michel Serrault) in a small French town falls under suspicion in a double rape/murder case. The police bring the lawyer in for questioning; at first politely, and then less so, the interrogation team (Lino Venture, Guy Marchand) chips away at the suspect's alibi. An expertly wrought surprise ending makes up for the clumsiness of the English-language dubbing. This French film was based on the British novel Brainwash, by John Wainwright. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An episodic, funny, though uneven spoof of human manners and foibles, this comedy by Vittorio de Sica begins in Naples when a disembodied voice announces to the city's residents "The Last Judgment will begin at 6:00 p.m." Naturally, not all are immediately willing to accept this statement -- but not for long. As comic vignettes unfold, the good citizens soon become even better as they try to undo past and present sins, just in case. There is a long list of top actors that show up briefly in the story, everyone from Alberto Sordi to Jimmy Durante, Melina Mercouri, Anouk Aimée, Vittorio Gassmann, and many, many others. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A veteran sea captain (Lino Ventura) is blamed for the disappearance of a ship when the vessel is hijacked by gunrunners. Mrs. Osborne (Sylva Koscina) is a pretty American widow who helps the accused captain search for the missing ship. Leo Gordon plays the menacing heavy, Morrison, and co-stars with Alberto Mendoza as Pablo. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Proof of the success of French filmmaker Edouard Molinaro is the fact that several of his home-grown hits have been remade as American films. The most recent example of this is 1996's The Birdcage, a highly profitable reworking of Molinaro's La Cage aux Folles (1978). The director's 1973 comedy A Pain in the A... also went the Cage aux Folles route of enjoying worldwide popularity, then undergoing an Americanization process. In the Molinaro original, Lino Ventura plays a friendless hit man who holes up in an Italian hotel room, awaiting the opportunity to knock off his target, a mob witness. No sooner has Ventura drawn a bead on his would-be victim than he is interrupted by the comically suicidal Jacques Brel, who wants to jump from the open window in the assassin's room. The banter and byplay between Ventura and Brel is priceless, especially when veering towards the "sick" humor that Molinaro handles so well. Based on a play by Francis Veber, Pain in the A... was remade by Billy Wilder as Buddy Buddy (1978), with Walter Matthau as the hit man and Jack Lemmon as his unexpected guest. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Romain (Lino Ventura) lost his wife in a forest fire, and his son, who blamed him for the death, left France for Canada. Romain is called to Canada to identify the corpse of a murder victim believed to his son. When the murdered man turns out to be someone else, his son automatically becomes the chief suspect in the murder. Romain decides to try and get the young man to turn himself in and searches through the byway underground and underworld life in Canadian cities with the help of Karen (Angie Dickenson), a lady with an unsavory past. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide