Marcel Dalio Movies

Following up 1964's Academy Award nominated L'Homme de Rio, French filmmaker Philippe de Broca wrote and directed this big-screen adaptation of André Couteaux's novel Un monsieur de compagnie. Jean-Pierre Cassel stars as Antoine, a young man who holds the philosophy "Laziness is the mother of all virtue" close to his heart and spends many dreamy days fishing with his wealthy grandfather. But when he has a prophetic dream that the old man will die impoverished, Antoine is motivated to change his life and try to earn his own money. Also starring Catherine Deneuve and Jean-Pierre Marielle, Un monsieur de compagnie was released in the United States in 1966 under the title Male Companion. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

John Ford's last film to deal with World War II, Donovan's Reef is an alternately comical and sentimental look back on the fighting Navy men from that war, and how and where -- in Ford's eyes, and Frank Nugent and James Edward Grant's script -- they should have ended up. Michael "Guns" Donovan (John Wayne), Thomas "Boats" Gilhooley (Lee Marvin), and Dr. William Dedham (Jack Warden), a trio of navy veterans who fought on the Pacific island of Haleakalowa during the war, now live on the island. Donovan and Gilhooley, biding time and enjoying themselves, engage in rough-house hijinks among themselves, and are both part of the doctor's extended family, enjoying the good will of the islanders for whom they fought during the war. While Dedham is away on a call to a neighboring island, his grown daughter, Amelia (Elizabeth Allen), from his first marriage, whom he has never seen, announces that she is arriving from Boston to determine Dedham's fitness of character to inherit the majority shares in the family shipping business. Donovan contrives to present Dedham's three Polynesian children, whom the doctor had with the island's hereditary princess, as his own, and also squires Amelia around the island in her father's absence. In the process, the cold Bostonian woman discovers a whole world -- of passion, joy, heroism, and a life among men and women whose lives have been about something other than making money -- that she's never known. She also understands all of the good that her father has accomplished away from Boston, even though it entailed abandoning her. Sparks and even a few fists fly between Donovan and Amelia (and between Donovan and several other characters), in the usual Ford rough-house manner, before their eventual reconciliation and a romantic clinch at the end, in this sweet, sentimental comedy-drama. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Based on Flora Sandstrom's novel The Midwife of Pont Clery, this lightweight sexual farce involves the effect that Jessica (Angie Dickinson), a voluptuous midwife, has on the small Sicilian town in which she currently resides. Jessica is an American whose intentions may be charitable but whose physical attractions raise the libido of the men in town. Potential moms decide it is better to forego pregnancy by foregoing sex (this is a Catholic town) rather than have Jessica show up to deliver a baby. Meanwhile, the town priest (Maurice Chevalier), in his wisdom, directs Jessica's attention to the handsome widowed Marquis who lives in a charming castle, all alone -- anything to bring normal marital relations back on track. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A criminal on the run finds going home after a decade is harder than he expects in this drama from French filmmaker Claude Sautet. Gangster Abel Davos (Lino Ventura) is wanted for murder in France, and has been living underground in Italy for ten years. Since then, Abel has married Therese (Simone France) and fathered two sons, and he's decided it's time to come home. Abel has planed an elaborate scheme in which he'll steal a fortune to finance his journey and head home with Therese and the boys, but little goes as planned, and he arrives in Paris without his wife and running from the law with two kids in tow. An underworld boss who owes Abel some favors helps him put together a plan to travel across France in an ambulance to avoid suspicion, and recruits a headstrong young gangster, Eric (Jean-Paul Belmondo), to serve as Abel's driver and right-hand-man. En route, Abel tries to settle some old score with criminal associates who betrayed him. Based on a novel by Jose Giovanni, Classe Tous Risques was the first feature film from Sautet, who previously had worked as an assistant director for some of France's most prestigious filmmakers. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Hoping to recapture the success of its 1945 Frederic Chopin biopic A Song to Remember, Columbia Pictures concocted the 1960 Technicolor costume drama Song Without End. Dirk Bogarde is cast as musical genius Franz Liszt. Bogarde's piano scenes are dubbed with another's singing voice, but this hardly matters in that the film is preoccupied with Liszt's infamous romantic entanglements. The crux of the matter is Liszt's desire to wed the already married Russian princess Carolyne (Capucine), which will necessitate an unpleasant breakup with his current lover, Countess Marie (Genevieve Page). Director Charles Vidor died after only a few weeks on the picture; he was replaced by George Cukor, who graciously insisted that Vidor be billed in letters larger than his. The chief selling point of Song Without End is its wall-to-wall music; the film won an Oscar for "best musical arrangement." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In one of the series' eeriest episodes, American photographer Rita Wallace (Cloris Leachman) sets up shop in Paris, hoping to capture the "soul of France" in her pictures. Advertising for a model, Rita ends up using a strange, reclusive little man (Marcel Dalio) with a haunted look in his eyes. Not long afterward, A few nights later, Rita is attacked and nearly strangled to death by a mysterious intruder--and only after she carefully scrutinizes her recent photographs does she even begin to grasp the significance of this inexplicable assault. If "The Dark Room" seems to have a Hitchcock flavor, it may be because the episode was written by "Hitch"'s frequent collaborator Francis Cockrell. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Never one to turn down a beautiful woman--especially one with a lofty title--Bart (Jack Kelly) lends $10,000 to Countess Michelle de Barot (Roxane Berard), accepting her pearl necklace as security. Unfortunately, the necklace turns out to be just as phony as the Countess. Teaming with his brother Bret (James Garner), Bret concocts a counter-swindle to get even with Countess Michelle and her equally larcenous uncle, Baron de Montaigne (played by the brilliant Marcel Dalio, some distance removed from his starring roles in the Jean Renoir classics La Grande Illusion and Rules of the Game). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Though director William Wellman was attached to the Lafayette Flying Corps during WW1, many people believed that he was actually with the celebrated Lafayette Escadrille, and this 1958 actioner does little to dispel that belief. The film concentrates on a group of courageous young American aviators who, long before the USA's entry into the Great War, band together to fight the minions of the Kaiser in the skies of France. One of these reckless flyboys is Thad Walker (Tab Hunter), who arrives in Paris after being thrown out of his wealthy father's home. Joining the Escadrille with Walker are fellow expatriates Tom Hitchcock (Jody McCrea), Duke Sinclaire (David Janssen) and "Wild Bill" Wellman (played by the director's son, Bill Wellman Jr.). After a bit of parlez-vous with the local mademoiselles, Walker and his pals take to the air, and at this point, the film really gets off the ground (no pun intended). The spectacular aerial sequences are evocative of those in Wellman's silent classic Wings, though Lafayette Escadrille itself falls a bit short of classic status. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Wounded in the French-Algerian war, Sgt. Andre Doniere (Jacques Bergerac) heads back to France in the company of his friend Marcel (Marcel Dalio), who lost a leg saving Andre's life. Although Doniere's return is eagerly awaited by his adoring fiancée, Sybil (Lilyan Chauvin), he is consumed by guilt over the fact that, during his hospital stay, he has fallen in love with another woman named Therese (Susan Kohner). It falls to Marcel to "rescue" his comrade for a second time. This is one of the few Hitchcock episodes without a humorous epilogue -- and for good reason. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

For its time, The Sun Also Rises was a reasonably frank and faithful adaptation of the 1926 Ernest Hemingway novel. Its main concession to Hollywood formula was the casting of star players who were all too old to convincingly portray Hemingway's "Lost Generation" protagonists. Tyrone Power heads the cast as American news correspondent Jake Barnes, who, after incurring a injury in WW I that has rendered him impotent, relocates to Paris to escape his troubles. Barnes links up with several other lost souls, including the nymphomaniacal Lady Brett Ashley (Ava Gardner), irresponsible drunkard Mike Campbell (Errol Flynn) and perennial hangers-on Robert Cohn (Mel Ferrer) and Bill Gorton (Eddie Albert). In their never-ending search for new thrills, Barnes and his cohorts trundle off to Spain, where they participate in the annual Pamplona bull run and act as unofficial "sponsors" of handsome young matador Pedro Romero (played by future film executive Robert Evans). Additionally, Lady Brett pursues a romance with Jake, despite her engagement to the dissolute Campbell. Filmed on location in Pamplona, Paris, Biarritz and Mexico, The Sun Also Rises was budgeted at $5 million; like many "big" pictures of the era, it tended to be hollow and draggy at times. The film's best performance is delivered by Errol Flynn, though it can be argued that, in taking on the role of the hedonistic, hard-drinking, burned-out Mike Campbell, he was merely playing himself. A vastly inferior version of The Sun Also Rises was produced for television in 1984. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this 1957 psychological action drama, Robert Taylor plays Lloyd Tredman, a WWII American airman plagued by guilt over the war deaths of comrades in failed missions. Living in Spain, Tredman is despondent after losing all his money betting on a horse which ends up throwing its jockey and killing him. In order to get money and help a former comrade, Jimmy Heldon (Jack Lord), who is also broke, Tredman agreeds to a currency smuggling plot proposed by Bert Smith (Martin Gabel). In on the scheme is a Madrid native, Toto del Aro (Marcel Dalio). They smuggle the money and elude authorities after a long chase, but when they discover that their booty includes narcotics, they turn themselves in and implicate Smith. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide