Claude Brasseur Movies

In this WW II drama, twelve captured French soldiers await their impending executions in a German prison camp. Fortunately, a wily resistance fighter and his men come to rescue the ill-fated dozen. The rescue attempt succeeds, but the rebels become worried when they discover a thirteenth prisoner who has come with the others. This fellow carries no ID, and now the fighters must decide whether he should die on the spot or continue on with the others. One of the group members votes for immediate execution. Later the stranger accompanies the group on a raid and ends up nearly sacrificing his life to save a child from being shot. The rebel leader is not impressed and orders that one of the men kill the stranger down by the river. The dutiful soldier listens to the stranger who tells him the truth: he is a deserter and a fervent pacifist. The soldier allows the deserter to escape. That night the stranger returns and tries to warn the rebels of a Nazi ambush. The group leader heads off to warn the others, but he is too late and they are all recaptured. Later all but the pacifist are hanged. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this crime drama, two middle-aged gangsters attempt to run an international smuggling ring and begin looking for new people to sneak their illicit gold across Europe. They take on a jobless journalist to assist, not realizing he is really a US government agent who is looking to see if the two crime lords are affiliated with an American crime boss who runs illegal guns to Cuba. The agent discovers that the two are not affiliated with the Mafia. The American Mafioso wants them to be though and eventually sabotages their operation and forces them to join. During a meeting between the two sides, the smuggler pretends to willingly acquiesce to the American. He also manages to surreptitiously plant a bomb that explodes and kills everyone but him. The US agent is impressed and compliments the wily old smuggler. The smuggler shrugs him off. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Jo (Eddie Constantine) is a gangster who is down on his luck. His cronies avoid him like the plague because his presence brings them misfortune as well. Jo gets in plenty of fights as he tries to press his luck in the right direction. The role is a departure for American actor Constantine, who usually plays a phlegmatic, hard-drinking detective with suave assurance. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

Director Jacques Baratier's Sweet and Sour is an independently produced project with a surprising amount of European movie-industry input. Guy Bedos, a Brando wannabe, plays one of several young French cineastes who take to the streets to make improvisational movies. The "cinema verite" quality of the film is somewhat undercut by the presence of major stars: Anna Karina, Simone Signoret, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Monica Vitti, Claude Brasseur, and many others. After several "spontaneous" vignettes -- a street tennis game, a striptease lesson, a West Side Story style gang rumble -- Guy Bedos announces he will go to Hollywood to film the life of Voltaire. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this lightweight French comedy a pair of sharpers, Cathy (Jeanne Moreau) and her ex-husband Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo) attempt to bilk a miserly millionaire out of his fortune during his visit to the French Riviera. Unfortunately for them, he is just as crafty as they are. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

The seven major sins receive treatment from some of France's greatest directors in this lively portmanteau. "Anger" by Dhomme, chronicles a single horrific day when every bowl of soup in France is found to contain a fly. This causes a devastating nationwide revolt. "Envy" by Molinaro tells the story of a chambermaid whose dream of sleeping with a millionaire comes true. Unfortunately, she goes back to work and finds herself still consumed with jealousy. De Broca's "Gluttony" provides one of the film's most enjoyable episodes as it follows the exploits of a voracious family heading off for a funeral. "Lust" by Demy is set at a Parisian sidewalk cafe and eavesdrops upon the lusty conversation between two young men, one of whom has x-ray eyes that enable him to see through women's clothing. "Laziness" by Godard features real life matinee idol Constantine as a movie star who finds himself too sluggish to respond to the starlet trying so hard to seduce him. "Pride" by Roger Vadim tells the satirical tale of a philandering wife who changes her mind and stays with her husband after learning that her happy home is being threatened by another woman. Finally in Chabrol's "Greed," young men who have pooled their meager resources to buy a prostitute, fight for the chance to be with her. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this romantic comedy, voluptuous Parisian model Sophie (Brigitte Bardot) is angered when she learns that her boyfriend Phillipe, a photographer, has been playing around with Barbara, an American heiress. Alain, another man, who has secretly loved her for years, suggests she get even by making love to him. Sophie has a better idea, she will follow her Corsican family traditions and simply shoot him. Alain warns the photographer who takes his new girl and flees for the Alps with Sophie and Alain in hot pursuit. In the scenic mountains, Sophie and the 'other' woman meet. Together they decide the men are not worth the effort and begin to despise them. This film contains the once-controversial "nude" dance scene with Bardot (who actually wore a body stocking). ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this drama, two lifelong buddies find their friendship tested when one of them hits the road after being accused of murder. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

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, Rovi

Heightened by an emphasis on the action scenes and good visual effects, La Verte Moisson is otherwise a fairly standard wartime tale set during the German occupation of France. A group of teen-age friends accidentally get into the resistance movement when a game they are playing turns deadly -- they need weapons to free a partisan fighter, and the only way to get them is by killing a German soldier. Once this deed is done, they are in it for better or worse, a commitment that ultimately leads to more casualties in their citizens' battle against the Germans. Claude Brasseur and Jacques Perrin are effective in their portrayal of two of the young men caught up in the resistance forces. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi