Michel Simon Movies
Swiss-born actor Michel Simon was one of the most popular and beloved actors of the French cinema. The son of a sausage maker, Simon drifted through his early years as a boxer, commercial photographer and acrobat. He turned "straight" actor in 1918, making his Geneva stage debut two years later. Essentially a theatre performer throughout the 1920s, Simon occasionally appeared in small film roles, notably as Jean LeMaitre in Dreyer's Passion of Joan of Arc (1928). Full film stardom came his way when, in 1931, Simon starred in the movie version of his great stage success Jean De La Lune. His screen performances of the 1930s remain fresh and alive even after six decades, largely due to Simon's sudden spurts of improvisation; Jean Renoir, who directed Simon in La Chienne (1931) and Boudu Saved From Drowning (1932), has credited the actor with introducing the "improv" technique to French filmmaking. Capable of harnessing his rocky-road face, bulky body and shambling manner for the purposes of menace as well as mirth, Simon proved a fearsome creature in Jean Vigo's last film, L'Atlante (1934). He also worked with such A-list directors as Marcel Carne, Julien Duvivier, and Rene Clair, appearing in the latter's Beauty and the Devil (1950) as both Faust and Mephistopheles! In 1957, Simon's film career nearly came to an abrupt end when he suffered facial and body paralysis as a by-product of an impure makeup dye. Despite his reduced physical mobility, he painstakingly made a comeback, winning several awards for his penetrating portrayal of an anti-Semitic French peasant in Claude Berri's The Two of Us (1967). All reports indicate that Michel Simon conducted his private life in the manner of one of his gross, eccentric film characters: he lived alone on a huge country estate, sharing space with a pet parrot and four apes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1975
This crime drama, with elements of comedy and satire, is most notable as the final screen appearance of Michel Simon. In the story, Simon plays Zizi, a news vendor who is tired of anonymity and doesn't much like people anyway. He confesses to a series of strangling murders which, in fact, he has nothing to do with. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Simon, Michel Serrault, (more)
- 1975
The Grand Magic Circus, which performed on streets and in theaters in the 1970s, here takes to film. The story told concerns a butcher who has ambitions to tell a high-minded tale as a filmmaker, and will resort to any means whether fair or foul, to accomplish his goal. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gerard Croce, Christopher Lee, (more)
- 1972
This film marks the final performance of the notable French film star Pierre Brasseur, who died not long after the film was shot. One of his better-known films is Children of Paradise. In this film, an Italian industrialist (Alberto Sordi) who has made his fortune using some shady tactics, unwittingly becomes the victim and entertainment for four retired jurists. These four men (Pierre Brasseur, Michel Simon, Charles Vanel and Claude Dauphin), though retired, make it a practice to keep their legal skills sharp. Whenever a suitable villain stumbles across their path, they conduct a trial with all the trimmings. It is a form of play, but these virtuoso lawyers are quite serious about it. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- 1971
Walerian Borowczyk's Blanche is a tragic romantic tale set in 13th century France. While visiting the castle of an old landlord (Michel Simon), both the king (Georges Wilson) and his philandering page Bartolomeo (Jacques Perrin) try to seduce the landlord's young, naive wife Blanche (Ligia Branice, the director's wife). The landlord's son Nicolas (Lawrence Trimble), who's secretly in love with Blanche, seeks to defend her honor and stays on the watch by her bedroom door. When the king tries to sneak to Blanche's bedroom at night, covered by his page's cloak, Nicolas wounds him in the hand, being certain that he punishes the page. To save the king's reputation, Bartolomeo cuts his own hand and admits he was trying to get to Blanche's bedroom. The outraged old master wants to punish the page himself, but the king won't let him. The old landlord blindly seeks vengeance, and tragedy follows. Some critics consider Blanche the director's masterpiece and a metaphor of imprisonment, as Blanche is compared to a white dove kept in a cage. Others point out that the film's main virtues lie mostly in its beautiful photography and loving attention to period detail. ~ Yuri German, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Simon, Ligia Branice, (more)
- 1970
Louis (Michel Simon) is the elderly science professor who is visited by the daughter of an American colleague. Lorraine (Patricia D'Arbanville) is the 18-year-old hippie student who Louis picks up hitchhiking. He lets her stay, after initially having reservations, and comes to like the perky teen. He allows her to invite some of her hippie friends for a birthday party, and the two generations bridge the gap at the celebration, a gathering that convinces Louis to discontinue his thoughts of suicide. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Simon, Patti D'Arbanville, (more)
- 1970
This three-part social satire lampoons the church, television, big business and universities plagued by campus unrest. Riccardo (Vittorio Gassman) is a rebel who causes confusion on campus and at a television station. Part two finds industrial magnate Cavazza (Michel Simon) hounding his subordinate Franco (Nino Manfredi) when the two travel to New York. Franco abandons his boss on Fifth Avenue, where he is arrested for using a phone booth as a toilet. Cavazza gets revenge when both are back in Italy. In part three, Don Giuseppe (Alberto Sordi) is a priest who defends himself against allegations of an illicit affair with a local cashier. After an audience with the bishop, the once-quiet priest demands a car, a wife, and another flock to lead. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vittorio Gassman, Nino Manfredi, (more)
- 1968
In this drama, a couple embroiled in marital turmoil decide to go on a three-week vacation to save their marriage. They end up staying with the husband's grandfather who is shocked to see that the marriage is truly failing. One day, as the philandering hubby returns from a tryst with his mistress, he sees an incredibly beautiful woman sunbathing. Naturally he gets all hot and bothered. Imagine his joy to discover that she is his wife! The marriage is saved. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1968
Jericho (Michel Simon) is a grandfather and a veterinarian who invites his grandson for a visit. The grandson and his wife are separated, but the two agree to make it appear that they are a happy couple. The grandfather knows better, realizing all along the couple is estranged. He slyly works to bring about a reconciliation to the couple and rekindle the passion they once knew when they first met and fell in love. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Simon, Marie Dubois, (more)
Having been forced into minor parts for several years by a debilitating illness, veteran film actor Michel Simon made a triumphant return to leading roles in the charming, poignant The Two of Us (Le Vieil Homme et L'Enfant). Simon plays a likeable old soak with one significant character flaw: he is a flagrant anti-Semite. During the Nazi occupation of Paris, 8-year-old Jewish lad Alain Cohen is sent to the country, there to live with the parents of his family's Catholic friends. One of those parents is, inevitably, Simon. Taking a liking to Alain, and unaware that the boy is Jewish, Simon attempts to introduce the lad to the doctrine of anti-Semitism. The boy plays along with the old man, teasing him about his prejudices. Despite their obvious philosophical differences, Simon and Alain form a strong and affectionate bond. Director Claude Berri, whose films have often touched upon the Jewish experience in France, once more draws from his own experiences to weave a sensitive, seriocomic scenario. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Simon, Alain Cohen, (more)
John Frankenheimer directs Burt Lancaster in the tense spy thriller The Train. Lancaster plays Labiche, a French railway inspector. Allied forces are threatening to liberate Paris, so Col. Franz von Waldheim (Paul Scofield) is ordered to move the priceless works of art from the Jeu de Paume Museum to the fatherland. The head of the museum (Suzanne Flon) attempts to convince Labiche that he should sabotage the train on which they are transporting the art. Labiche is more focused on destroying a trainload of German weapons. After his friend is killed trying to stop the train with the art, and after a consciousness-raising conversation with a hotel owner (Jeanne Moreau), Labiche resolves to save the antiquities. Lancaster and Frankenheimer had worked together previously on both Birdman of Alcatraz and Seven Days in May. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Burt Lancaster, Paul Scofield, (more)
- 1965
Laurent (Pierre Brasseur) is a newspaper reporter sent to investigate a string of mysterious small-town murders. Although he fails to solve the crime, he uncovers a murder plot concocted by a wife and her lover to kill the woman's husband. The uneven feature careens from comedy to drama with some thrills added and a surprise ending. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pierre Brasseur, Michel Simon, (more)
- 1964
French dialogue and English subtitles are featured in this review of the career of Michel Simon who worked with Jean Vigo and Jean Renoir. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1962
Various genres -- social satire, comedy, and romance -- come together in this routine tale by Denis de la Patellière about a family and greed. The well-heeled family gets its fortune from the canning of fish, and all its members are thrown into disarray when a long-lost brother comes back home. They would rather he stay lost, and now to get even with them, the terminally ill prodigal son deeds over his share of the company to his illegitimate son, Emile (Lino Ventura). Emile is a little rough around the edges and lives on a boat with a dubious-looking girlfriend -- just the type the family despises. At the same time, no one in the family considers whether or not Emile feels the same about them. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Annie Girardot, Lino Ventura, (more)
- 1962
Filmmaker Julien Duvivier returns to the multistoried format of his earlier omnibus films Tales of Manhattan and Flesh and Fantasy with the 1962 French production The Devil and the Ten Commandments. Actually, there are only seven separate episodes in the film, covering such commandments as "Thou Shalt Not Have Any Gods Before Me", "Thou Shalt Not Steal" and "Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother." Each of the vignettes seems to owe more to O. Henry or DeMaupassant than the Book of Exodus, with twist endings carrying the day. The all-star cast includes Michel Simon (Episode One), Dany Saval (Episode Two), Charles Aznavour and Lino Ventura (Episode Three), Micheline Presle, Mel Ferrer and Claude Dauphin (Episode Four); Fernandel (Episode Five); Alain Delon and Danielle Darrieux (Episode Six) and Jean-Claude Brialy (Episode Seven). Best of the batch is the fifth episode, wherein horse-faced Fernandel declares that he is God. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Simon, Françoise Arnoul, (more)
- 1960
In what must be the longest lapse of time between a film and its sequel, 70-year-old Abel Gance continues his nearly legendary, 1927 historical drama Napoleon with this tale of Napoleon's life after his victories in Italy. The first half of Austerlitz delves into the private life of Napoleon Bonaparte (Pierre Mondy), the prodigal son of Corsica. The supreme commander of the French armed forces goes about his family life and dallies with Josephine (Martine Carol) and mistress Mlle. de Vaudey (Leslie Caron). He occasionally displays bursts of temper that presage some of the macho violence of the battle scenes in the second half of the film, after Napoleon has proclaimed himself Emperor. This sequel shows that Gance has not lost his directorial touch. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pierre Mondy, Rossano Brazzi, (more)
- 1960
Jean-Pierre Cassel is ideally cast as the hopelessly optimistic Candide in this noir updating of Voltaire's classic 18th-century social satire. Candide has been assured by his ivory-tower professor (Pierre Brasseur) that whatever fate befalls him, he will be all the better for it. Armed with the confidence of the ignorant, Candide is abused by practically everyone he comes across (he has a particularly rough time in a German POW camp), but somehow emerges with his faith in humanity unscathed. His picaresque adventures take him all the way to the Americas, both North and South. Just as in most stage versions of Candide, some of the supporting actors play double and triple roles: Robert Manuel, for example, portrays all the German officers Candide meets. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pierre Brasseur, Michel Simon, (more)
- 1960
In this routine crime drama, popular French actor and comic Michel Simon is cast as Pierrot, an elderly gangster who does not fit the stereotype -- he is soft-hearted. After a petty criminal betrays his cohorts by taking off with the loot from a big robbery, he is caught and sent to jail. Now he has served his time, and Pierrot is given the task of retrieving the stolen cash. The tyro criminal tries to use a pretty young woman who has fallen in love with him as a red herring for Pierrot's investigation. Everything backfires though, and Pierrot is left considering what to do with the loot, and with the criminal who does not yet realize he loves his attractive accomplice and could have a good life with her if he opts for walking the straight and narrow. Michel Simon was struggling to get back to work during this period, a few years after some bad dye in make-up had left his face and part of his body paralyzed. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Simon, Dany Saval, (more)
A horror film of dubious taste, a least for the early '60s when it was released, this Gothic tale about transplanted heads comes from Germany and is directed by Victor Trivas. Prof. Abel (Michel Simon) has invented the miraculous "Serum X," and with it he successfully keeps a dog's head alive after the rest of the canine is quite dead. When the able Prof. Abel dies, his assistant, the odd Dr. Ood (Horst Frank), keeps Abel's head around -- but not for old times' sake. Dr. Ood is in love with a hunchbacked nurse (Karin Kernke) and he wants Abel's head to help him out with a novel transplant operation. Dr. Ood wants to take the body of a stripper (Christiane Maybach), snip off her head, and put the nurse's head in its place. Unfortunately, nothing goes exactly as he plans. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Horst Frank, Michel Simon, (more)
- 1958
A Swiss-French coproduction, It Happened in Broad Daylight is an austere but shocking story of the hunt for a human monster. A forest community is terrorized by a child murderer, who per the title strikes in broad daylight. Whereas such a criminal might be more easily tracked down in the confines of a big city, the village police are obliged to comb miles and miles of mountains and wooded wilderness. A detective (Heinz Ruhmann) goes undercover to trap the murderer, posing as a workman with a wife (actually a local widow) and child. Veteran French character actor Michel Simon briefly appears as a falsely accused suspect, who commits suicide rather than face the shame of being branded a child killer. Slightly marred by some clumsy plot contrivances and by the rather crude dubbing in the English-language prints, It Happened in Broad Daylight is nonetheless one of the more accomplished European suspensers of the 1950s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Heinz Rühmann, Sigfrit Steiner, (more)
- 1957
A film company on location happens to photograph a murder in progress. Ambitious police inspector Bernard (Michel Simon) hopes to advance his career by nabbing the culprit. Unfortunately for Bernard, the murderer closely resembles a set of identical twins! Once Simon finally figures out who's who, a gang of criminals, angered at all the publicity engendered by the case, fix it so that both the criminal and the inspector lose out in the end. A very minor piece, Les Trois Font la Paire (Three Make a Pair) is historically important as the last directorial effort of Sacha Guitry, who died 14 days after the film's premiere. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Simon, Sophie Desmarets, (more)
