Pierre Boileau Movies
Pierre Boileau and his partner Thomas Narcejac wrote numerous best-selling suspense novels, many of which were adapted into films. Among these adaptations are Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958) and Clouzot's Diabolique (1955). They also adapted other author's books for screen and wrote a few original screenplays of their own. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Henri-Georges Clouzot's classic French thriller gets a Hollywood makeover in this glossy remake. Guy Baran (Chazz Palminteri) is the dull, loutish headmaster of a private school that has seen better days. While Guy oversees the day to day operations, the school is actually owned by his wife Mia (Isabelle Adjani), whose spirit has been crushed by Guy's casual cruelty and whose health is frail. Guy has been openly having an affair with one of his teachers, Nicole Horner (Sharon Stone), who has almost as much contempt for Guy as Mia. Mia and Nicole eventually join forces against their common enemy and plan to murder him and conceal the evidence. However, while the killing goes as planned, Guy's body mysteriously disappears from the carefully chosen spot where it was dumped, and when a chatty detective, Shirley Vogel (Kathy Bates) begins asking questions, both women begin to wonder who knows what about their murderous scheme. This was the third remake of Les Diaboliques, following two made-for-TV adaptations, Reflection of Murder and House of Secrets. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sharon Stone, Isabelle Adjani, (more)
- 1996
With a few sly nods toward Hitchcock, this romantic French crime thriller follows book editor Pierre Duval down a ruinous road of illicit passion, treachery, mystery and murder. His fateful journey begins when his married lover Claire Jaillac tells him that she is going to move to the Moroccan wilds with her husband, an engineer who has been hired to oversee the construction of a dam. Not wanting to give up a good thing with no fight, Duval arranges to write her husband's biography and accompany them. Unfortunately Duval and Bernard Jaillac get on the plane, but Claire does not. They are not their long before Duval begins to suspect that he is the object of a deadly conspiracy. Despite his growing paranoia, Duval keeps quiet. On the day he finally decides to speak up, a plane lands and out steps Claire Jaillac. But she is not the Claire that Duval loved. This is an entirely different woman, a real stranger. This leaves Duval to begin trying to figure out his lover's true identity. The new Claire has other plans though and after she seduces Duval, she presents him with a dark plan that seals his fate. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vincent Lindon, Jacques Dutronc, (more)
- 1993
- R
Entangled, directed by Max Fischer, is a confusing, indifferently acted story of fashion-model Annabelle (Laurence Treil) and the men who fall in love with her. In flashbacks, Annabella meets writer David Merkin (Judd Nelson) who writes a novel which she submits anonymously to a competition. David, jealous of Annabella, and aided by his photographer friend, Max (Roy Dupuis), follows Annabella to the chateau belonging to mysterious Patrick Garavan (Pierce Brosnan) where he observes her being photographed in a menage-a-tois. After an accidental murder, several plot twists and a car-crash, the film reaches a confusing, unsatisfying conclusion. Entangled is adapted from the French novel Les Veufs, written by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac who wrote many celebrated mystery novels. Here, despite all, the plot drags along, until the improbable, highly confusing conclusion, which director Fischer attempts unsuccessfully to explain using flashbacks and a narrative. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Judd Nelson, Laurence Treil, (more)
When prison psychiatrist Bill Chrushank (Jeff Fahey) loses an arm in a car accident, he receives a revolutionary new transplant from an unknown donor, who is later discovered to have been a recently-executed psycho-killer. During his recovery, Bill is tormented by violent nightmares and aggressive new impulses -- and his limb seems to have developed a malevolent will of its own, acting independently and lashing out beyond his control. He eventually discovers that an artist named Remo Lacey (Brad Dourif) -- whose work is influenced by the same nightmares -- is the recipient of the killer's other arm. Before long, the same donor's legs turn up on yet another man, who harbors the same violent mood swings... and the inevitable "reunion" culminates in a violent, gory finale. Written and directed by Eric Red (based on the novel Choice Cuts by Pierre Boileau & Thomas Narcejac), this is a stylish and tightly-paced film (the harrowing car chase is a definite nail-biter), but the ball is sadly dropped by a weak script that discards the twisted potential of its premise (is the donor arm influencing Chrushank's mind, or vice versa?), lapsing instead into standard slasher-think. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeff Fahey, Lindsay Duncan, (more)
- 1984
During World War II, allied soldiers Ralph Bates and Yves Beneyton escape from a Nazi POW camp in France. They escape to Lyons, where they accept the hospitality of mademoiselle Cherie Lunghi. The woman has a psychic sister, played by Mathilda May, who sees dark days ahead for the two escapees. Sure enough, Bates is killed, whereupon Beneyton, at Lunghi's behest, assumes Bates' identity. It's all part of a complex inheritance-scam plot, but Beneyton does not figure this out until he's in too deep. Letters to an Unknown Lover is based on the Boileau-Narcejack suspense novel Les Louves, which was the original French title of this film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cherie Lunghi, Mathilda May, (more)
- 1969
In this thrilling mystery of mistaken identity, Jacques (Pierre Vaneck) is a piano player in a nightclub who is approached by a man he never met before. The stranger offers him a job posing as the husband of a mentally challenged woman. He will be rewarded for taking care of the woman. Since his contract has expired at the club, he readily accepts the proposition. The stranger turns out to be the valet of the woman, who other than playing with decapitated dolls, seems quite normal. Jacques and the woman end up falling in love. He looks just like her husband who disappeared during an African safari. It turns out the missing man is a former Nazi hiding out from the international police. Soon agents converge on the house along with the man who had supposedly vanished, leading to an inevitable showdown. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pierre Vaneck, Elsa Martinelli, (more)
- 1962
In this thriller, a veterinarian falls in love with an ex-African explorer after he comes to help her ailing cheetah. She begs him to return to Africa with her, but he doesn't want to leave his wife. Soon his wife finds herself plagued by a series of bizarre accidents. The vet blames the explorer who has a great knowledge of voodoo. To spare his wife from further curses, he agrees to go to Africa with the woman. While in the wilderness, a flash flood engulfs them and the woman is swept away. Though the vet could save her, he decides not to. Later, the wife confesses that she was responsible for the accidents. The vet is suddenly overcome by guilt and turns himself in to the police. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Juliette Greco, Jean-Marc Bory, (more)
- 1962
Gentle Art of Murder is comprised of a trio of short crime tales: "The Spider's Web," "The Fenyrou Case" and "The Mask." An international all-star cast appears in these filmed playlets, wherein each perfect murder turns out to be less than perfect. The stories are linked by "bookend" scenes in which an aspiring wife murderer goes to a movie house and watches the three cautionary tales unreel. Nearly three hours long, Gentle Art of Murder holds both the audience--and the would-be killer--in thrall. The film's original title was Crime Does Not Pay, though it bears no relation to the MGM short-subjects series of the same name. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Edwige Feuillère, Pierre Brasseur, (more)
- 1961
Pleins Feux sur l'Assassin is a passable murder mystery by Georges Franju set in the atmospheric interior of an old chateau and involving the heirs to a fortune. The dying man whose fortune it is has played an unusual trick on those who would have his riches. He has hidden himself in a secret room inside the chateau, knowing that his body has to be found before the castle can be passed on as an inheritance. The would-be heirs are caught in a dilemma but decide to turn the venerable structure into a light-and-sound show extravaganza in order to attract tourist money. That is just fine, except a series of accidents among them soon begins to look like murder. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pierre Brasseur, Pascale Audret, (more)
- 1960
Although there may be a few minor gaps here and there in the storyline, Faces in the Dark is a suspenseful drama by director David Eady. Richard Hammond (John Gregson) owns a factory, and on the very day his wife Christine (Mai Zetterling ) is coming to his office to tell him she wants a divorce, he is accidentally blinded during an experiment. His wife relents in her decision, but Richard is still as abrasive as ever, and now the bumpy spots in his personality are made worse by self-pity and a suspicion that he is losing his sanity. Meanwhile, Richard begins to suspect that the cool and aloof Christine and Richard's partner conspire against him, but as a blind man he has fewer resources to pinpoint why he is suspicious. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Gregson, Mai Zetterling, (more)
- 1960
Murder, illusion, and lies form the basis of this convoluted drama that centers around twin sisters and the man that loves one of them. The girls work as a circus illusionist. People love their act because the girls are adept at making the audience believe that there is only one of them. To keep the illusion alive, the girls sign a contract that keeps them publicly separated. A man falls in love with one of the twins without knowing that she has a sister. The other sister becomes terribly jealous of the affair. The man's alcoholic mother is also jealous of the affair and murders one of the twins. Unfortunately, she murdered the wrong one. Meanwhile, news of the murder is kept secret to preserve the illusion. The poor man, in a confused rage, thinking his love to be the jealous twin, kills her. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jacques Riberolles, Ellen Kessler, (more)
French director Georges Franju's Eyes Without a Face (Les Yeux Sans Visage) is an unsettling, sometimes poetic horror film. Pierre Brasseur plays a brilliant plastic surgeon, Prof. Genessier, who has vowed to restore the face of his daughter, Christiane (Edith Scob), who was mutilated in an automobile accident. With the help of his assistant (Alida Valli), he kidnaps young women, surgically removes their facial features, and attempts to graft their beauty onto his daughter's hideous countenance. This naturally has an adverse effect on the "donors," some of whom commit suicide rather than go through life faceless. Franju's haunting, muted handling of basic horror material is what lifts Eyes Without a Face out of the ordinary and into the realm of near-classic. When the film failed to draw crowds under its original title, however, the distributors decided to exploit it as a two-bit "scare" flick with the new title The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pierre Brasseur, Alida Valli, (more)
- 1959
Danielle Darrieux stars in this Belgian chiller as a songstress whose obsessively jealous husband suddenly dies. Feeling free for the first time in years, Darrieux inaugurates a romance with Michel Auclair. But even now she is the victim of her husband's omnipresence; evidently returning from the grave, the dead man haunts both Darrieux and her new lover. If you've seen Diabolique, you may catch on to a few of this film's many plot twists. Oddly, Murder at 45 R.P.M (produced in 1960, released in the US five years later) is frequently absent from the published resumes of both Danielle Darrieux and Michel Auclair. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Danielle Darrieux, Michel Auclair, (more)
- 1958
Les Louves was also released as Demoniaque and She Wolves. By any name, it's a puzzler, at least until the final fast-paced scenes. Gervais (François Perier) escapes from a German concentration camp and assumes the identity of a recently deceased fellow prisoner. Knowing that the dead man has been carrying on a romance by correspondence with Helene (Micheline Presle), a woman whom he has never seen, Gervais makes the acquaintance of the woman and moves in with her. The woman's sister, Agnes (Jeanne Moreau), dabbles in the black arts, which should be warning enough for Gervais to make himself scarce. But he sticks around, intrigued that the dead man's sister, Julia (Madeleine Robinson), refuses to blow the whistle on him. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- François Perier, Micheline Presle, (more)
Dismissed when first released, later heralded as one of director Alfred Hitchcock's finest films (and, according to Hitchcock, his most personal one), this adaptation of the French novel D'entre les morts weaves an intricate web of obsession and deceit. It opens as Scottie Ferguson (James Stewart) realizes he has vertigo, a condition resulting in a fear of heights, when a police officer is killed trying to rescue him from falling off a building. Scottie then retires from his position as a private investigator, only to be lured into another case by his old college friend, Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore). Elster's wife, Madeleine (Kim Novak), has been possessed by a spirit, and Elster wants Scottie to follow her. He hesitantly agrees, and thus begins the film's wordless montage as Scottie follows the beautiful yet enigmatic Madeleine through 1950s San Francisco (accompanied by Bernard Herrmann's hypnotic score). After saving her from suicide, Scottie begins to fall in love with her, and she appears to feel the same way. Here tragedy strikes, and each twist in the movie's second half changes our preconceptions about the characters and events. In 1996 a new print of Vertigo was released, restoring the original grandeur of the colors and the San Francisco backdrop, as well as digitally enhancing the soundtrack. ~ Dylan Wilcox, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Stewart, Kim Novak, (more)
The greatest film that Alfred Hitchcock never made, Henri-Georges Clouzot's Diabolique is set in a provincial boarding school run by headmaster Michel Delasalle (Paul Meurisse). A ruthless lothario, he becomes the target of a murder plot concocted by his long-suffering invalid wife Christina (Vera Clouzot, the director's own spouse) and his latest mistress, an icy teacher played by Simone Signoret. A dark, dank thriller with a much-imitated "shock" ending, Diabolique is a masterpiece of Grand Guignol suspense. The simple murder plot goes haywire, and Michel's corpse disappears, prompting strange rumors of his reappearance which grow more and more substantial as the film careens wildly towards its breathless conclusion. Later remade as a greatly inferior 1996 Hollywood feature with Sharon Stone and Isabelle Adjani. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Simone Signoret, Véra Clouzot, (more)
