Christian-Jaque Movies

La Vie Parisienne is a musical which is based on the farcical operetta by Jacques Offenbach which made the can-can famous. The story concerns two rich sons of the upper classes, who revel in the rich nightlife of Paris where they can drink, gamble, womanize and rub shoulders with all classes. Eventually, they tire of this and confine their elaborate womanizing schemes to other aristocrats, with the help of their sympathetic servants. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Imagine, for a moment, that a town in the American Old West was founded by and for French people, and that two of the sexiest women in modern times were rivals for control of that town. In Les Petroleuses, Frenchy (Brigitte Bardot) and Maria (Claudia Cardinale) are at war over an oil lease. Maria and her gang of train-robbing brothers got a poor haul on their last robbery. The only thing they found was one measly case with a geological map indicating that a nearby farm was a likely oil-drilling site. It's too bad for Maria that Frenchy has the deed to the farm. While the two of them feud over this and other issues, the bumbling local sheriff is desperately trying to learn French, so that he can woo one of these extraordinary dames. This film sounds as though it was intended as a comedy, but it was made as a perfectly straightforward, serious Western. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This drama, based on Alexander Dumas' novel, chronicles the doomed love between Lord Horatio Nelson and the scandalous Lady Emma Hamilton. The tale begins when luscious country girl Emma, who possesses feminine charms no man can resist, uses her beauty to charm her way into the inner circle of the social elite, eventually marrying the prominent Lord Hamilton. She then has an affair with the naval hero, Nelson, whom she marries after her first husband dies. She even has a child with her new man. When he dies, however, she is deeply hurt to discover that her aristocratic "friends" will not allow her to attend the honored man's funeral. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Pierre (Robert Hossein) is a fortysomething attorney who falls for a young woman (Michele Mercier) who dances in a discotheque to work her way through medical school. He is invited to her apartment where he observes the woman is living in relative luxury with the latest lavish fashions, but the lovestruck lawyer can't bring himself to leave his wife over the young woman, who obviously has another man on the string. When her wealthy suitor is murdered, Pierre is accused and put on trial for the man's death. Even when he is acquitted, Pierre is persecuted by those who still believe he is guilty. He soon realizes that the woman he loves may be the one who committed the murder in this emotional crime drama. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Co-directed by French filmmakers Noël Howard and Denys de La Patellière, La Fabuleuse aventure de Marco Polo is a star-studded, epic retelling of the story of the famed thirteenth-century Venitian explorer. Filmed on location in France, Italy, Yugoslavia, Egypt and Afghanistan, the film stars Horst Bucholz as Polo, the ambitious young voyager who, along with his faithful servant Akerman (Orson Welles), ventures to China, where he joins Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan (Anthony Quinn) in his fight against rebelling forces. Also starring Omar Sharif, La Fabuleuse aventure de Marco Polo was released in the United States and Great Britain under the title Marco the Magnificent. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

La Guerre Secrete is divided into four separate vignettes, each scene representing a day in the life of international espionage agents. Stories involve a secret agent (Vittorio Gassman) who goes undercover as a kidnapper, an attempt to impede a Russian attack on two submarines, and an undercover agent confronting a traitor in the Berlin offices of the CIA. Linking the stories is Robert Ryan as a US Intelligence chief. Terence Young directed the English-language sequences, while Christian-Jacques and Carlo Lizzani handled the French and Italian sequences, respectively. German director Werner Klinger's name does not appear on the US credits of The Dirty Game, inasmuch as his scenes were cut from all American prints. Dirty Game sank without a trace on its initial release, only to pop up on television, intermittently, throughout the '70s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A diverse group of friends gather to celebrate a witless woman's birthday in this comedy drama set in France during World War II. The guests include an uncle who is a Nazi collaborator, a blind war veteran, a simpering physician, an arrogant educator, a patriotic girl, and the husband of the guest of honor. When some German soldiers are killed outside the house, the group is told by the Gestapo that they must choose among themselves two who will be shot if the killer is not caught. If two victims are not chosen, all seven at the party will be captured. Things sound pretty grim, but the black comedy begins when all seven try to save themselves by any means possible. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

A lovely young nurse finds herself framed for the murder of a hospital patient who died after she administered an injection. She goes to court where eventually, the real killer is revealed by his own jilted lover in this French drama. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Love and the Frenchwoman (La Francaise et L'Amour) concentrates on the nature of love by illustrating seven separate aspects of the emotion. In "Childhood," 9-year old Pierre-Jean Vaillard suffers a traumatic experience when he takes his parents' "cabbage patch" theory of conception too literally. In "Adolescence," a little girl (Annie Sinigalla) constructs an elaborate fantasy world on the occasion of her first kiss. "Virginity" is a study in frustration, as betrothed couple Valerie Lagrange and Pierre Michel agonizingly await their wedding-night consummation of their ardor. "Marriage" finds a union ending almost before it begins as a pair of newlyweds (Marie-Jose Nat and Claude Rich) bicker all the way to their honeymoon rendezvous. "Adultery" allows husband Paul Meurisse the opportunity to calmly provide an object lesson to his wife's lover Jean-Paul Belmondo. In "Divorce", a couple (Annie Girardot and Francois Pierer) find that it's impossible to have a "civilized" breakup. And in "A Woman Alone," bigamist Robert Lamoreaux meets his Waterloo in the forms of Martine Carol and Sylvia Montfort. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Fernandel plays a French customs sergeant who conducts an ongoing war of nerves with Italian smuggler Toto on the Franco-Italian border. The French sergeant discovers that, through a long-ago hospital mix-up, he is actually an Italian citizen. Now Fernandel is legally prevented from arresting Toto--and to make matters worse, he is the lawbreaker in Italian eyes because of his divorce and remarriage! The publicity attending the long-anticipated teaming of France's favorite funnyman Fernandel (born Fernand Joseph Desire Contandin) and his Italian counterpart Toto (born Antonio de Curtis Gagliardi Ducas Comneno di Bisanzio) helped to make The Law Is the Law one of the most successful films in both comedians' careers. The film, incidentally, was a French production (originally titled La Loi c'est la Loi), so in fact it was Toto, not Fernandel, who was the "alien." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Si Tous Les Gars du Monde is an entertaining tribute to the ham radio operators of the world. The story begins when a French shipping boat takes on an Arab passenger. While on the high seas, the Arab becomes seriously ill with a communicable disease that threatens the lives of everyone on board. Unable to reach the proper medical authorities, the boat sends out a desperate S.O.S., whereupon several amateur-radio enthusiasts of different nationalities spring into action. Directed and co-scripted by noted filmmaker Christian-Jacque, Si Tous les Gars du Monde is more familiar to Late Late Show devotees under its English-language title, If All the Guys in the World ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This film is comprised of three vignettes focusing upon women and war. The first episode, set in WW II, chronicles the sad journey of an American woman who goes to Italy to bring her husband's body home. In Italy she makes a heart-wrenching discovery: he had been living with an Italian family and had impregnated their daughter and sees the child. The second story chronicles the abandonment of Joan of Arc, by her king and her soldiers. The third episode is a humorous adaptation of "Lysistrata," the Greek play where Athenian wives refused to sleep with their husbands until they stopped making war. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide