Elisabeth Wiener Movies

In this film that sends up the foibles of filmmaking, a standard crew of actors, stage-hands, director, writers, producers, and others are gathered for the filming of a 45-second automobile commercial. Each role embodies an archetype (the harried director who has a deadline to meet, the Scrooge production manager who has a budget to meet, and the writers who are above these mundane concerns), and these personalities drive the working actors over the edge until they decide to lock them up and do their own thing -- happiness can be just around the corner if you are in the driver's seat. Hopefully, the actors will be able to bow out before the police catch on to the situation. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

The members of a singles' dinner club meet once a week to talk about their difficulties and help one another out with their lives, with romance, and whatever seems appropriate. In this movie, their dinners are featured, and vignettes of the participants' lives put their encounters into a larger perspective. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This film chronicles the strange battle among a pair of beings from the sphere of the sun or moon, who take the form of women and fight over a young man in bars, hotels, and mystical power-spots. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Adapting the Gothic novel The Monk, by Matthew G. Lewis, Luis Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carrière wrote the screenplay for this French film, directed by Buñuel's friend, Ado Kyrou. In the story, Ambrosio (Franco Nero) is a monk who is sexually tempted by an emissary of the Devil, a young girl in monk's robes. After he has committed numerous crimes, it appears that he will be caught and punished by the Inquisition. Instead, he signs up on the Devil's team and wins his freedom...and eventually, the papacy. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This French farce/drama takes place in Ireland in 1916, during one of the peak periods of revolutionary violence. Seven Irish revolutionaries have taken over a post office, totally evacuating the building. Or so they think. They missed Gertie Gertel, who was in the bathroom at the time. By the time she is discovered, they are sufficiently besieged that for her own safety, she must stay with them. Gertie, it turns out, is about as pro-British as it is possible to be, and the seven take it on themselves, in the midst of battles and gunfights, to win her over to their cause. While they are at it, they set out to woo her, as well. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Philippe (Salvatore Adamo) lands in prison for an attempted robbery. With the help of two convict he meets, he tries again to steal the papers that lead to his father's blackmail and ultimate suicide. Jess Hahn and Michel Constantine star as the veteran criminals who try to help Philippe but are motivated by the other contents of the locked safe. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, a casino owner in Barcelona absconds with a gangster's fortune and is chased to Monte Carlo where he impersonates a millionaire. While there he weds a wealthy American widow. When the gangster learns of the marriage, he and the thief's ex-mistress team up and head for Monte Carlo where they plan on winning back the mobster's missing fortune. Meanwhile the thief thinks about murdering his bride for her money. Unfortunately, the vengeful gangster does it first and frames her new husband for the death. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A young female film editor specializes in discovering why other women degrade themselves in pornography and prostitution. She has a relationship with a boring artist, and her life is uneventful until she encounters an older, more worldly art dealer. The man shows her his photographs and she is mesmerized by a picture of a naked woman in chains. The man tries to hide the photo, but she is insistent on seeing it. The man admits this is how he gets aroused, by taking pictures of the bound beauties. The woman asks to come to a photo session where she is repulsed and intrigued at the same time. She leaves, but later returns to the man at his office and becomes hooked on his sadomasochistic voyeurism and begs to become the next model for his camera in the upcoming photo session. He brings in another woman and the session degenerates into a lesbian love fest that the man eagerly captures on film. Shamed, debased and degraded, she pulls her car onto a train track and contemplates her demise. Injured but not dead, she is straddled in her hospital bed when the man comes to visit. She goes into a psychedelic hallucination dream sequence in which her sexual escapades flash before her eyes as the man and her artist boyfriend engage in fisticuffs. Yikes! ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

By 1964, it was possible for a major studio to make a film touching upon the Spanish Civil War without having to answer to some senate investigating committee or other. Based on Emeric Pressburger's novel A Mouse on Sunday, Behold a Pale Horse stars Gregory Peck as a war veteran who continues waging a one-man offensive years after hostilities have officially ceased. Exiled to France, Peck is lured back to Spain by vengeful police captain Anthony Quinn. Priest Omar Sharif advises Peck that he's being tricked, but Peck is determined to return to Spain to bid farewell to his dying mother Mildred Dunnock. Halfway through, the film bogs down into ponderous preachifying and moralizing, but overall the film is worth a glance. In 1966, Behold a Pale Horse was scheduled to be telecast on a major American network, but was cancelled at the last minute, reportedly at the behest of the Spanish government. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide