Paul Claudon Movies

This is a light comedy about Amir, a young Pakistani who has been working for Jo for six years. Jo has a ready-to-wear clothes shop in the Sentier area and his business is prospering. He promised Amir that he would help him get his legal papers, but he has never kept his promise. Now he is sending Amir to his colleague Ralph in exchange for an unpaid debt from a card game. He thinks that this is a good opportunity to get rid of the illegal worker. Ralph is a fifty-year-old baby who keeps forgetting his appointments, his bank balance, and everything else that he should remember to run his life smoothly. His business is a complete disaster. A year later, Ralph's business has picked up, but Joe's is going down the drain. Thanks to whom? It is easy to answer this question if one follows Amir during his daily chores in the shop. But neither Jo nor Ralph's bother to take the time off to notice the hard work of this poor employee. Even if they did, they would not admit that a Pakistani is behind the success of the business. Secretly, Amir hopes that one day he will finally get his legal papers, if not a simple 'thank you' from his employers. The film is another effort by one of the group of French filmmakers actively involved in the fight against racial discrimination in France. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, Rovi

When Jenny Quester (Catherine Deneuve) is harassed over the phone by a mysterious caller, she enlists the help of her policeman brother Frank (Andre Dussolier) in this suspenseful crime drama. She fears the calls may be from a murderer who recently was discharged from an insane asylum. Later Jenny finds evidence that someone has been in her apartment. Last-minute plot twists provide anxiety and thrills in this directorial debut for Elisabeth Rappeneau. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

Duroc (Jean Rochefort) is a secret agent called on to deliver an exploding car to a gang of terrorists in this spy spoof. When someone leaks the plan to the terrorists, Duroc becomes the hunted rather than the hunter. He encounters several situations where people unwittingly interfere with his mission. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

In this comedy-drama, a young but sterile man suddenly wants to be a father. A friend calls this the "kangaroo complex," because male kangaroos do not have pouches to carry their offspring. So Loic (Roland Giraud, just out of his starring role in Trois Hommes et une Couffin later to be remade in the U.S. as Three Men and a Baby), goes looking for a solution to his "complex." He cannot have children himself because of a bad case of the mumps when he was in his mid-20s. That does not leave many options open to him until he accidentally comes across his old girlfriend with her 6-year-old son and notes that the little boy looks a lot like him. It does not take much to convince him that the boy is his own but once having reached that conclusion, the rest of his plan for new-found fatherhood is loaded with pitfalls. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

In one of his few directorial efforts, Francis Perrin, the French comedian and actor, has created a routine film that relies a great deal on his comedic talents. Perrin plays a tour guide with an innately charming way with the opposite sex, and the generous desire to help out his less accomplished roommate improve his love life. When the roommate falls for an attractive psychiatrist, the tour guide manages to get in to see her, hoping to insinuate his roommate into her affections. His altruistic objective dies when he actually meets her and is smitten himself - and then the task that lies ahead is how to keep on seeing her and beguile her into sharing his feelings. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Georges Wolinski wrote this comedy in conjunction with Paul Claudon (producer) and Claude Confortes (director), based on his own cartoon strips, and in particular, his character "Georges le Roi" (Francis Perrin in the film.) Georges is the self-styled "king of sex appeal" whose creatively brilliant words of love manage to enchant women right into his bed, no problem. At least, no problem until an enterprising woman decides to record Georges' flights of romantic poetics and market them for everyman's use. Suddenly, blissful anonymity is gone and a world is waiting with baited breath to meet the incredible Georges - but woe to Georges, the woman's treacherous act against the once libidinous bachelor has an unexpected result. How to remedy the situation then, before the truth about Georges gets out? ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Director Bertrand Blier's Les Valseuses features Gerard Depardieu and Patrick Dewaere as a pair of sociopaths wending their way across France. Though Depardieu is the more dominant of the two, both men are equally culpable in their disregard for common decency. They are particularly rough on women, even the like-minded Miou-Miou, whom they both love in their own way. Jeanne Moreau has a brief bit as an ex-convict who sleeps with both Depardieu and Dewaere. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This Tatiesque French comedy stars popular comedian/filmmaker Pierre Etaix as Yo Yo, a 1920s tycoon who, though surrounded by many fabulous things and though living in a grand old castle, is still unhappy for pining over his long-lost love, a beautiful circus performer. One day he sees her again. Soon afterward the stock-market crash destroys his financial state and, impoverished, he joins the circus. The two have a son who performs in the circus as a young clown. Later, their son becomes a famous movie star and uses his fortune to buy his father's former castle. By this time, though, his father has decided to remain with the circus, and soon the young man comes to a similar conclusion. The first part of the film is done as a silent picture, the second half with sound and occasional French dialogue. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi