Henri Vilbert Movies

This film, set in France at the time of the Second World War, is neither a love story, nor a war action/adventure story. An injured and toothsome young man is found in the woods by a 14-year-old French girl, who is entranced by him. He claims to be an Englishman, there to organize resistance to the Nazis, and she hides him in her family's attic. She falls in love with him, and at his prompting, seeks out the local resistance to put him in contact with them. Unfortunately, he's been lying to her all along. He's a Frenchman who fought at the Eastern Front with the Germans. Because of her help, he is able to single-handedly exterminate the entire local resistance operation. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

In this WWII comedy, a French POW escapes and hides at an inn. After the war, he stays at the inn to help the innkeeper, whom he has become involved with, rather than return to his wife. When the innkeeper's husband shows up ten years later, the POW goes back to his wife, whom he finds married to the chef at the cafe he ran. His wife refuses to sleep with the chef until a divorce is granted. The chef returns home to Normandy, thinking that he is out of luck, but the POW follows him and tells him that if he takes responsibility for his wife and the cafe, he will grant the divorce. The POW's loneliness is relieved when the innkeeper tells him that her husband has gone to Siberia and they are free to get married. ~ Steve Huey, Rovi

Claude Autant-Lara's 1961 Count of Monte Cristo is one of the most faithful screen versions of the evergreen Alexandre Dumas story -- and one of the most compelling, thanks to the director's ability to squeeze the last drop of romanticism out of the original. While Louis Jourdan seems ill at ease as the younger Edmond Dantes, he is ideally suited for the film's later scenes, when the older, sadder, and wiser Dantes begins exacting revenge upon those who had him condemned to prison. Honoring the spirit of the original, Autant-Lara avoids inserting the leftist proselytizing which weighed down many of his later films. To perk up the pace and ensure double-bill bookings, the American distributor of Count of Monte Cristo removed 90 minutes from the film's 3-hour length. This was the seventh movie adaptation of the Dumas classic, which was first filmed by Hobart Bosworth in 1912. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this standard tale of a gold-hearted prostitute and her difficulties, Zizi Jeanmaire plays Guinguette, the former lady of the evening who has abandoned her profession for a better life. She finally has the means to open up a bar and dancehall away from the city but just when everything seems to be going well, trouble happens. Gangsters intrude on her life and although she should be happy because she's fallen in love with a great man, that is a rocky road too. The nubile, sixteen-year-old Maryse (Maria-Christina Gajoni) is determined to take Guinguette's love away from her. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

In this tragedy, a matador is deeply shaken by the death of a good friend who was gored in the ring and decides to retire. He then moves to a ranch to begin raising fighting bulls. His attempts at peace are disrupted by a nagging girlfriend who wants her lover to keep on being a national hero. Finally he returns to the ring only to get gored to death. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Letters from My Windmill (Les Lettres De Mon Moulin) was adapted by French-filmmaker Marcel Pagnol from three short stories by Alphonse Daudet. The first, "The Three Low Masses," involves a clergyman whose taste for gourmet foods leads him to confrontation with Satan. "The Elixir of Father Gaucher" tells of a group of monks who deal in homemade wines and spirits to replenish their church coffers. And "The Secret of Master Cornille" is the story of businessman's harmless ruse which snowballs into near-tragedy. Roger Crouzet plays Alphonse Daudet, who repairs to a deserted windmill to write the three stories dramatized herein. The US prints of Letters from My Windmill contain subtitles written by Hollywood expatriate Preston Sturges. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Proibito (Forbidden) is based on Grazia Deledda's Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Mother. Mel Ferrer stars as Don Pablo, a priest who returns to his provincial home in Sardegna. Here he discovers to his dismay that a centuries-old feud between two families is still raging. Don Pablo hopes to bring peace to the community, but his task seems insurmountable. Meanwhile, the priest's childhood friend Agnese (Lea Massari) secretly continues to harbor a stronger affection for Don Pablo than she should. Even those critics who were cool to the stars and plotline of Proibito were bowled over by the Technicolor cinematography of Aldo Tonti. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Sang et Lumieres (Blood and Light) stars Daniel Gelin as Ricardo, a dashing matador. After a fellow bullfighter is killed in the ring, Ricardo decides it's time to retire. As a result, his fickle movie-actress mistress Marilena (Zsa Zsa Gabor) flounces out of his life. He is then targeted for persecution by journalist Riera (Arnoldo Foa). Still, Ricardo refuses to be coerced back into the ring. It takes the concerted efforts of the mercenary Marilena and Ricardo's equally greedy manager Naguera (Henri Filbert) to force Ricardo back into action. Tragedy inevitably ensues, though it is tragedy of the "grim irony" variety: Ricardo is not so much killed as he is loved to death by his fanatical fans. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

La Route Napoleon is a lampoon of the aggressive sales tactics adopted by the French tourism industry. Go-getting publicity flack Martel (Pierre Fresnay) hits upon a clever scheme to boost the tourist trade along the coast of France. He arranges a group of sightseeing tours around the route taken by Napoleon during his 1815 flight from Elba. He then sets up a series of "authentic" historical sites along the way, the better to separate the tourists from their money. The irony of it all is that when Martel comes across a site where Napoleon actually stayed during his journey, the owners refuse to allow the building to be exploited. Undaunted, Martel decides to turn the next town up the road into the hub of all tourist activities. The changes brought upon the nonplused residents of this heretofore sleepy village is the source of most of the film's comedy. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

French novelist-turned-film director Marcel Pagnol made this black and white feature in 1953, He later wrote a novel based on his original script, which in turn was the source material for two much better known films made by director Claude Berri in 1986 - - Jean de Florette and Berri's own version of Manon des sources. Released uncut for the first time in 1988, Pagnol' s feature has a hefty running time of over four and a half hours. The story concerns the efforts of the beautiful shepherdess Manon Cadoret (played by the director's wife Jacqueline Pagnol) to avenge the death of her father Jean de Florette. The chief culprit in that death is a hapless peasant (played by veteran Marseilles comic Rellys), who, sadly, is desperately in love with Manon. Manon's revenge involves cutting off the town's water supply, drawing the wrath of the villagers. Her only ally is the town's somewhat haughty schoolteacher (Raymond Pellegrin), who she eventually marries. The action of this film corresponds roughly to Berri's version of Manon des sources. His Jean de Florette focused on events surrounding the father's death, which is here covered mostly in dialogue. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi