I suppose there’s a more interesting film to be made about the great composer Ennio Morricone, but watching Giuseppe Tornatore’s loving and comprehensive “Ennio” makes it almost impossible to care. An uncomplicated and reverent tribute that was shot before the late maestro’s death in 2020 (and would feel like a two-and-a-half-hour tribute reel if not for the fact that Morricone himself is the film’s most frequent talking head), this straightforward biodoc is almost perversely generic for a movie that’s meant to honor one of cinema’s greatest radicals.
And yet, do you really not want to see Clint Eastwood deadpanning that Morricone’s music “helped dramatize me, which is really hard to do”? Would a less conventional documentary have been able to squeeze Bruce Springsteen, Wong Kar-wai, and James Hetfield into the same film, or include so much of what Bernardo Bertolucci had to say about...
And yet, do you really not want to see Clint Eastwood deadpanning that Morricone’s music “helped dramatize me, which is really hard to do”? Would a less conventional documentary have been able to squeeze Bruce Springsteen, Wong Kar-wai, and James Hetfield into the same film, or include so much of what Bernardo Bertolucci had to say about...
- 2/7/2024
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
When you consider the evidence, the 1970s was the greatest crime movie period since the 1930s. Maybe it’s because of the grim film stock, but those 10 years were so filled with the criminal element even a highly-rated political journalism feature like All the President’s Men (1976) is really an investigation into indictable acts. The decade is defined by Francis Ford Coppola’s first two The Godfather movies, but those tell the story of the dons who live in compounds on Long Island. Most illicit infractions are committed on the street, and so many fall between the cracks.
Crime and gangster movies historically and consistently break boundaries in motion picture art. This is especially true when independent filmmakers muscle their way in packing something heavy. The 1970s was an experimental decade for motion pictures with wildly varied visions behind the lens. Some of these films were considered old-fashioned, others have proven...
Crime and gangster movies historically and consistently break boundaries in motion picture art. This is especially true when independent filmmakers muscle their way in packing something heavy. The 1970s was an experimental decade for motion pictures with wildly varied visions behind the lens. Some of these films were considered old-fashioned, others have proven...
- 8/12/2023
- by David Crow
- Den of Geek
Claude Lelouch, the Oscar-winning director of “A Man and a Woman,” is getting ready to direct “Finalement…,” his next film which he says will be a sort of sequel to his BAFTA-nominated film “Happy New Year” and “L’aventure, l’aventure.” The lighthearted movie will reteam Lelouch with Metropolitan FilmExport which is co-producing with Lelouch’s banner Les Films 13, and will distribute in France.
Scored by popular French singer Ibrahim Maalouf, “Finalement…” will boast a large ensemble cast of French stars, including Kad Merad (“Baron Noir”), Elsa Zylberstein (“Simone”), Sandrine Bonnaire, Raphael Mezrahi, Michel Boujenah and Barbara Pravi.
Merad will play a powerful lawyer who sees his life take an unexpected turn after a health issue removes his ability to lie and forces him to speak without any filter. Merad’s character embarks on a road trip across France, from Paris to the Normandie, to the Mont St Michel, Avignon...
Scored by popular French singer Ibrahim Maalouf, “Finalement…” will boast a large ensemble cast of French stars, including Kad Merad (“Baron Noir”), Elsa Zylberstein (“Simone”), Sandrine Bonnaire, Raphael Mezrahi, Michel Boujenah and Barbara Pravi.
Merad will play a powerful lawyer who sees his life take an unexpected turn after a health issue removes his ability to lie and forces him to speak without any filter. Merad’s character embarks on a road trip across France, from Paris to the Normandie, to the Mont St Michel, Avignon...
- 5/21/2023
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Hungry for those wet Parisian streets, the city lights, and cadavres en lambeaux in the pale moonlight? Enter three highly atmospheric, star-studded Crime Noirs, one of which is a stealth classic of Gallic Pulp. Stars Jean Gabin, Jeanne Moreau, Lino Ventura, Marcel Bozzuffi, Gérard Oury, Sandra Milo, and Annie Girardot bring the tales of à sang froid malice and mayhem to life. The films featured are Gilles Grangier’s Speaking of Murder (Le rouge est mis) and Édouard Molinaro’s Back to the Wall (Le dos au mur) and Witness in the City (Un Témoin dans la ville). Beware of French husbands when cucklolded — they show no pity. Bonne chance, victimes!
French Noir Collection
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1957-59 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen, 1:37 Academy / 265 minutes / Street Date November 29, 2022 / available through Kino Lorber / 49.95
Starring: Jean Gabin, Jeanne Moreau, Lino Ventura, Marcel Bozzuffi, Gérard Oury, Sandra Milo, Annie Girardot, Paul Frankeur,...
French Noir Collection
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1957-59 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen, 1:37 Academy / 265 minutes / Street Date November 29, 2022 / available through Kino Lorber / 49.95
Starring: Jean Gabin, Jeanne Moreau, Lino Ventura, Marcel Bozzuffi, Gérard Oury, Sandra Milo, Annie Girardot, Paul Frankeur,...
- 11/19/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Director Edward Berger and producer Malte Grunert are set to follow up their new adaption of Erich Maria Remarque’s harrowing war novel “All Quiet on the Western Front” with a much more upbeat work, a remake of the rollicking 1967 French-Italian pic “The Last Adventure,” which starred Alain Delon, Lino Ventura and Joanna Shimkus.
Grunert and Berger had been working on the remake and were already in development when “All Quiet on the Western Front,” which makes its world premiere at the Toronto fest Sept. 12, came along.
They are now planning to return to the project after Berger finishes his next pic, the Vatican-set thriller “Conclave,” based on the Robert Harris novel and set to star Ralph Fiennes, John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci and Isabella Rossellini. Berger goes into prep on “Conclave” in October in Rome, with production scheduled to start in January.
Directed by Robert Enrico, “The Last Adventure” follows...
Grunert and Berger had been working on the remake and were already in development when “All Quiet on the Western Front,” which makes its world premiere at the Toronto fest Sept. 12, came along.
They are now planning to return to the project after Berger finishes his next pic, the Vatican-set thriller “Conclave,” based on the Robert Harris novel and set to star Ralph Fiennes, John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci and Isabella Rossellini. Berger goes into prep on “Conclave” in October in Rome, with production scheduled to start in January.
Directed by Robert Enrico, “The Last Adventure” follows...
- 9/12/2022
- by Ed Meza
- Variety Film + TV
Jean-Pierre Melville’s film is a harrowing look at life in the French resistance during World War II. Starring legendary actors Lino Ventura, Simone Signoret, and Jean-Pierre Cassel, the film was a political football during its initial release in 1969, but has been reappraised and, more importantly, restored for safekeeping.
The post Army of Shadows appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
The post Army of Shadows appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
- 8/15/2022
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
One Shot is a series that seeks to find an essence of cinema history in one single image of a movie. Jean-Pierre Melville’s Army of Shadows (1969) welcomes the unhappy memories of Vichy France. The movie unfolds like a living diary, mostly from the perspective of the sturdy Phillipe Gerbier (Lino Ventura), a member of the French resistance. It puts before us, among other things, the individual costs that are meant to be paid to the collective. Paul Dounat (Alain Libolt) is a traitor who is to be punished for his treachery. On the face of it this punishment is a righteous act performed by the committed heroic forces. But his murder by the resistance sequence flips that notion. When La Masque (Claude Mann), a young member of the execution party, berates the traitor for his actions we realize that Dounat is but a kid who hardly fits his coat.
- 4/4/2022
- MUBI
Le Désordre et la Nuit, shown as part of a retrospective for the great thriller director at Lyon’s Lumière film festival, is a well-crafted treat for fans of the genre
A big feature, and an even bigger pleasure, of this year’s Lumière film festival in Lyon is the retrospective for the French master of policiers and crime, Gilles Grangier, a director who enjoyed great commercial success in movies and later in TV from the 1950s to the 80s, working with actors such as Jean Gabin and Lino Ventura and the great screenwriter Michel Audiard (father of Jacques). He was a working-class film-maker who came up from the streets of Paris, and started in the movies as a stuntman, grip, prop boy, any job he could get.
Grangier is a name perhaps eclipsed now by Jean-Pierre Melville and made to feel obsolete in the 60s by the New Wave...
A big feature, and an even bigger pleasure, of this year’s Lumière film festival in Lyon is the retrospective for the French master of policiers and crime, Gilles Grangier, a director who enjoyed great commercial success in movies and later in TV from the 1950s to the 80s, working with actors such as Jean Gabin and Lino Ventura and the great screenwriter Michel Audiard (father of Jacques). He was a working-class film-maker who came up from the streets of Paris, and started in the movies as a stuntman, grip, prop boy, any job he could get.
Grangier is a name perhaps eclipsed now by Jean-Pierre Melville and made to feel obsolete in the 60s by the New Wave...
- 10/11/2021
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
It’s yet another masterpiece from the Italian director Francesco Rosi, adapting a fiction novel about a political murder conspiracy that is altogether too much of a good fit for the troubled Italy of 1975. Crime star Lino Ventura is the incorruptible detective investigating a series of killings of high-level judges, who begins to intuit that his superiors want the murders to continue. Dark and moody, Rosi’s picture is impeccably directed for a kind of nagging, uneasy suspense, with frightening hints that Ventura is being drawn into a bigger, more sinister frame. With Charles Vanel, Max von Sydow and Fernando Rey, and music by Piero Piccioni. The insightful audio commentary is by Alex Cox. The original Italian title is even more blood-curdling: Cadaveri eccelenti.
Illustrious Corpses
Blu-ray
Kino Classics
1976 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 121 min. / Cadaveri eccellenti; The Context / Street Date September 28, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Lino Ventura, Tino Carraro, Marcel Bozzuffi,...
Illustrious Corpses
Blu-ray
Kino Classics
1976 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 121 min. / Cadaveri eccellenti; The Context / Street Date September 28, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Lino Ventura, Tino Carraro, Marcel Bozzuffi,...
- 9/4/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
In the black comedy thriller “Next Door,” the directorial debut of actor Daniel Brühl, the main character, Daniel, is a successful actor living in an old quarter of Berlin. His day is about to be ruined, and his life too. Variety spoke to Brühl – whose upcoming acting credits include “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” and Matthew Vaughn’s “The King’s Man” – about the film, which plays in competition this week at the Berlin Film Festival.
Daniel, played by Brühl, seems to be remarkably similar to Brühl in real life – he is of German-Spanish heritage, the hit that launched his career was a “Stasi comedy,” and since then he has acted in Hollywood movies and series. But this is not Brühl, but a “heightened” version of him, the actor-director says.
The film starts with Daniel sitting in his beautiful Berlin apartment, preparing to fly to London to audition for a Hollywood super-hero movie.
Daniel, played by Brühl, seems to be remarkably similar to Brühl in real life – he is of German-Spanish heritage, the hit that launched his career was a “Stasi comedy,” and since then he has acted in Hollywood movies and series. But this is not Brühl, but a “heightened” version of him, the actor-director says.
The film starts with Daniel sitting in his beautiful Berlin apartment, preparing to fly to London to audition for a Hollywood super-hero movie.
- 3/2/2021
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
800x600 Normal 0 false false false En-us X-none X-none
By Matt Davey
Released in 1972, The Valachi Papers depicts the rise and fall of Mafia informant Joseph Valachi, who became the first member of the Mafia (otherwise known as Cosa Nostra) to acknowledge its existence in public. Directed by Terence Young and produced by legendary Italian film producer Dino De Laurentiis The Valachi Papers stars Charles Bronson in the lead role, alongside his real-life wife Jill Ireland as well as Lino Ventura, Walter Chiari and Joseph Wiseman.
The film covers five decades of Valachi’s involvement in organised crime – from his burglaries with the Minutemen to working under mob boss Vito Genovese from the 1930s – as the film unceremoniously portrays life in the criminal underworld. Told from the perspective of Valachi, the film begins with the ageing gangster in prison fearing for his life after a contract for his killing is ordered...
By Matt Davey
Released in 1972, The Valachi Papers depicts the rise and fall of Mafia informant Joseph Valachi, who became the first member of the Mafia (otherwise known as Cosa Nostra) to acknowledge its existence in public. Directed by Terence Young and produced by legendary Italian film producer Dino De Laurentiis The Valachi Papers stars Charles Bronson in the lead role, alongside his real-life wife Jill Ireland as well as Lino Ventura, Walter Chiari and Joseph Wiseman.
The film covers five decades of Valachi’s involvement in organised crime – from his burglaries with the Minutemen to working under mob boss Vito Genovese from the 1930s – as the film unceremoniously portrays life in the criminal underworld. Told from the perspective of Valachi, the film begins with the ageing gangster in prison fearing for his life after a contract for his killing is ordered...
- 2/2/2021
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Jean-Pierre Melville’s most accomplished, most personal movie gets a new reissue. Ignored in 1969 and released in the United States only 37 years later, this somber, ultra-realistic look at the French resistance has never been equalled. Forget thrilling adventure tales with daring escapes, patriotic oaths and beautiful spies; Melville presents resistance activities in the Occupied territory as a fearful grind leading in one direction only. Criterion’s extras include an interview piece with historical operatives, who still argue points of strategy.
Army of Shadows
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 385
1969 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 145 min. / L’Armée des ombres / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date April 7, 2020 / 39.95
Starring: Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Simone Signoret, Claude Mann, Paul Crauchet, Christian Barbier, Serge Reggiani, André Dewavrin.
Cinematography: Pierre Lhomme, Walter Wottitz
Film Editor: Françoise Bonnot
Original Music: Eric De Marsan
Written by Jean-Pierre Melville from the novel by Joseph Kessel
Produced by Jacques Dorfmann
Directed...
Army of Shadows
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 385
1969 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 145 min. / L’Armée des ombres / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date April 7, 2020 / 39.95
Starring: Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Simone Signoret, Claude Mann, Paul Crauchet, Christian Barbier, Serge Reggiani, André Dewavrin.
Cinematography: Pierre Lhomme, Walter Wottitz
Film Editor: Françoise Bonnot
Original Music: Eric De Marsan
Written by Jean-Pierre Melville from the novel by Joseph Kessel
Produced by Jacques Dorfmann
Directed...
- 4/7/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Germany’s Amusement Park Film is developing an English-language remake of the French-Italian movie “Les Aventuriers,” with Edward Berger on board to direct, and “Next Door,” a Berlin-set dark comedy that will mark the directorial debut of actor Daniel Bruhl.
Berger, who is known for helming “Deutschland 83″ and Benedict Cumberbatch-starrer “Patrick Melrose,” is co-developing the remake of “Les Aventuriers.” Gregory Burke, the BAFTA-nominated writer of “71” and “7 Days in Entebbe,” is writing the screenplay.
“Les Aventuriers” is a 1967 movie directed by Robert Enrico and starring Alain Delon and Lino Ventura. Based on a novel by José Giovanni, the story revolves around two likable underachievers who are best friends and set off to go treasure-hunting off the coast of Africa.
Amusement Park, which has offices in Berlin and Hamburg, is set to produce the remake and will be casting some prominent actors in the lead roles, producer Malte Grunert told...
Berger, who is known for helming “Deutschland 83″ and Benedict Cumberbatch-starrer “Patrick Melrose,” is co-developing the remake of “Les Aventuriers.” Gregory Burke, the BAFTA-nominated writer of “71” and “7 Days in Entebbe,” is writing the screenplay.
“Les Aventuriers” is a 1967 movie directed by Robert Enrico and starring Alain Delon and Lino Ventura. Based on a novel by José Giovanni, the story revolves around two likable underachievers who are best friends and set off to go treasure-hunting off the coast of Africa.
Amusement Park, which has offices in Berlin and Hamburg, is set to produce the remake and will be casting some prominent actors in the lead roles, producer Malte Grunert told...
- 9/28/2019
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
‘Hands off the Loot!’ Jacques Becker’s crackling Paris crime tale is a time machine to an age of Parisian tough guys in double breasted suits, who never show their cards, and mistreat women in ways the Hollywood production code would never allow. Old thief Jean Gabin’s ill-gotten wealth is threatened by the newcomer creep Lino Ventura, thanks to the treachery of a very young Jeanne Moreau; the struggle revives weapons and tactics not used since the Occupation. One of the Great Euro crime classics is now looking terrific in Kino/Studio Canal’s restoration.
Touchez pas au grisbi
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1954 / B&w / 1:37 flat Academy / 96 min. / Honor among Thieves / Street Date August 13, 2019 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Jean Gabin, René Dary, Paul Frankeur, Lino Ventura, Jeanne Moreau, Dora Doll, Daniel Cauchy, Michel Jourdan, Marilyn Buferd, Denise Clair, Gaby Basset, Delia Scala.
Cinematography: Pierre Montazel
Film Editor:...
Touchez pas au grisbi
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1954 / B&w / 1:37 flat Academy / 96 min. / Honor among Thieves / Street Date August 13, 2019 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Jean Gabin, René Dary, Paul Frankeur, Lino Ventura, Jeanne Moreau, Dora Doll, Daniel Cauchy, Michel Jourdan, Marilyn Buferd, Denise Clair, Gaby Basset, Delia Scala.
Cinematography: Pierre Montazel
Film Editor:...
- 9/21/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Thierry Fremaux, the artistic director of the Cannes Film Festival, delivered a heartfelt homage to Alain Delon at a ceremony on Sunday during which the French actor received the honorary Palme d’Or.
Alluding to the controversy that Delon has triggered with his past declarations, Fremaux said the actor was entitled to have his own convictions and has never tried to convince anyone of his beliefs.
“We know that intolerance is back (…) we’re being asked to believe that if we all think the same it will protect us from the risk of being disliked or being wrong, but Alain Delon is afraid of being disliked, being wrong, and he doesn’t think of others, and he’s not afraid of being alone,” said Fremaux inside the jam-packed Debussy theater to an audience that included high-profile guests such as John Bailey, the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Alluding to the controversy that Delon has triggered with his past declarations, Fremaux said the actor was entitled to have his own convictions and has never tried to convince anyone of his beliefs.
“We know that intolerance is back (…) we’re being asked to believe that if we all think the same it will protect us from the risk of being disliked or being wrong, but Alain Delon is afraid of being disliked, being wrong, and he doesn’t think of others, and he’s not afraid of being alone,” said Fremaux inside the jam-packed Debussy theater to an audience that included high-profile guests such as John Bailey, the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
- 5/20/2019
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Telekinesis, aka moving stuff with your mind (for the non-scientific hoi polloi), blew up big time with Brian DePalma’s Carrie (1976); soon we had boarding school snake whisperers (Jennifer) and bed bound psychotics (Patrick) filling the screens in an effort to scare audiences. But the most intriguing of the post White lot is The Medusa Touch (1978), a film that ups the scale of destruction while offering one of the most misanthropic views of humanity in horror from the ‘70s. (Which is saying a lot.)
This British-French co-production was released by Itc in the UK in early April, with a world wide rollout shortly thereafter. Every review wasn’t completely terrible; several critics praised the talented cast and the special effects, while the rest found it to be another in a growing line of psychic mumbo jumbo, mixed with The Omen’s creative deaths. Around these parts we call that a win,...
This British-French co-production was released by Itc in the UK in early April, with a world wide rollout shortly thereafter. Every review wasn’t completely terrible; several critics praised the talented cast and the special effects, while the rest found it to be another in a growing line of psychic mumbo jumbo, mixed with The Omen’s creative deaths. Around these parts we call that a win,...
- 5/18/2019
- by Scott Drebit
- DailyDead
The Cannes Film Festival is going forward with its decision to award an honorary Palme d’Or to Alain Delon despite criticism from the U.S. organization Women and Hollywood over comments that the veteran French actor has made about slapping women, opposing the adoption of children by same-sex parents and supporting the rise of the far right in France.
Following Cannes’ April 17 announcement of the honor, Women and Hollywood founder Melissa Silverstein said she was “extremely disappointed” that Cannes would honor someone who held such “abhorrent values.” In a tweet, Silverstein said Delon “has publicly admitted to slapping women. He has aligned himself with the racist and anti-Semitic National Front. He has claimed that being gay is ‘against nature.’ The Cannes Film Festival has committed itself to diversity and inclusion. By honoring Mr. Delon, Cannes is honoring these abhorrent values.”
Cannes told Variety that it was “honoring Alain Delon...
Following Cannes’ April 17 announcement of the honor, Women and Hollywood founder Melissa Silverstein said she was “extremely disappointed” that Cannes would honor someone who held such “abhorrent values.” In a tweet, Silverstein said Delon “has publicly admitted to slapping women. He has aligned himself with the racist and anti-Semitic National Front. He has claimed that being gay is ‘against nature.’ The Cannes Film Festival has committed itself to diversity and inclusion. By honoring Mr. Delon, Cannes is honoring these abhorrent values.”
Cannes told Variety that it was “honoring Alain Delon...
- 5/6/2019
- by Elsa Keslassy and Brent Lang
- Variety Film + TV
Revered French actor Alain Delon, who starred in Luchino Visconti’s masterpiece “The Leopard,” will receive an honorary Palme d’Or at this year’s 72nd Cannes Film Festival.
In receiving the honor from Cannes, Delon will follow in the footsteps of Jeanne Moreau, Woody Allen, Bernardo Bertolucci, Jane Fonda, Clint Eastwood, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Manoel de Oliveira, Agnès Varda and Jean-Pierre Léaud.
Describing Delon as a “giant, a living legend, a global icon… [and even] a box office champion,” the festival said the honorary Palme d’Or will “pay tribute to [Delon’s] wonderful presence in the history of film.”
“Pierre Lescure and I are delighted that Alain Delon has accepted to be honored by the festival,” said Thierry Fremaux, Cannes’ artistic director. Fremaux added that Delon “hesitated for a long time, having long been reluctant to [accept] this Palme d’Or because he thought he should only come to Cannes to celebrate the directors he had been working with.
In receiving the honor from Cannes, Delon will follow in the footsteps of Jeanne Moreau, Woody Allen, Bernardo Bertolucci, Jane Fonda, Clint Eastwood, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Manoel de Oliveira, Agnès Varda and Jean-Pierre Léaud.
Describing Delon as a “giant, a living legend, a global icon… [and even] a box office champion,” the festival said the honorary Palme d’Or will “pay tribute to [Delon’s] wonderful presence in the history of film.”
“Pierre Lescure and I are delighted that Alain Delon has accepted to be honored by the festival,” said Thierry Fremaux, Cannes’ artistic director. Fremaux added that Delon “hesitated for a long time, having long been reluctant to [accept] this Palme d’Or because he thought he should only come to Cannes to celebrate the directors he had been working with.
- 4/17/2019
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
The Trouble With You (En Liberté!) star Pio Marmaï with director Pierre Salvadori: "Write it down. I prefer being a bastard." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
New York's 2019 uniFrance Rendez-Vous with French Cinema opening night film at the Film Society of Lincoln Center was Pierre Salvadori's The Trouble With You (En Liberté!), co-written with Benoît Graffin and Benjamin Charbit, starring Adèle Haenel and Pio Marmaï with Audrey Tautou, Vincent Elbaz, and Damien Bonnard. The morning after the première, Pierre Salvadori and Pio Marmaï joined me for a conversation on rehearsing a scene to find the "right rhythm and logic", editors Isabelle Devinck (Salvadori's In The Courtyard) and Géraldine Mangenot, Claude Lelouch's La Bonne Année with Lino Ventura, and Kim Novak in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo.
Pierre Salvadori on Pio Marmaï's character: "The thing about Antoine is that he is running after a chimera to catch back the time." Photo: Anne-Katrin...
New York's 2019 uniFrance Rendez-Vous with French Cinema opening night film at the Film Society of Lincoln Center was Pierre Salvadori's The Trouble With You (En Liberté!), co-written with Benoît Graffin and Benjamin Charbit, starring Adèle Haenel and Pio Marmaï with Audrey Tautou, Vincent Elbaz, and Damien Bonnard. The morning after the première, Pierre Salvadori and Pio Marmaï joined me for a conversation on rehearsing a scene to find the "right rhythm and logic", editors Isabelle Devinck (Salvadori's In The Courtyard) and Géraldine Mangenot, Claude Lelouch's La Bonne Année with Lino Ventura, and Kim Novak in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo.
Pierre Salvadori on Pio Marmaï's character: "The thing about Antoine is that he is running after a chimera to catch back the time." Photo: Anne-Katrin...
- 3/26/2019
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
To see the feline countenance of Alain Delon is to immediately understand his movie stardom. How could he have been anything else? It would almost be a cosmic insult to his beauty not to commit it to celluloid. But beyond the erotically-charged pin-up and genre tough guy, Delon would also become a respected actor with a long list of auteur collaborators: Visconti, Melville, Antonioni, Joseph Losey, and the like. The mega-star of European cinema, with his cold grey eyes and louche attitude, could be forbidding or aloof; dashing or innocent. There’s a chance to see all of those iterations of the actor at a new retrospective dedicated to him at New York’s Quad Cinema, aptly-titled "L’Homme Fatal."Early in his career, Delon’s youthful beauty would be utilized in Luchino Visconti’s classics Rocco and his Brothers (1960) and The Leopard (1963), but filmmakers also quickly recognized his ability to play the cad,...
- 8/31/2018
- MUBI
Luigi Comencini's oeuvre is just bulging with goodies, a cinematic Santa-sack encompassing multiple genres and tones, in a career running from the late forties to the early nineties. I recently sang the praises of his desperate gambling comedy The Scientific Card Player, but he also made films about Casanova's boyhood, virtual reality and, in Italian Secret Service (1968), the then-resurgent espionage genre, Italian and world politics, and the decline of Italian idealism since the war.Just as Pietro Germi's Divorce: Italian Style was about murder, and De Sica's Marriage: Italian Style took in adultery, betrayal and uncertain parentage, so Comencini's title contains a bitter joke: we know this intelligence service is going to be sordid, stupid and utterly lacking in the accustomed James Bond lifestyle.But we first meet our hero, dashing Nino Manfredi, in the happier times of WWII, saving an English commando (Clive Revill) from a fascist...
- 8/23/2018
- MUBI
Louis Malle’s French thriller is cooler than cool — his first dramatic film is a slick suspense item with wicked twists of fate and images to die for: 1) Jeanne Moreau at the height of her beauty 2) walking through beautifully lit Parisian back streets 3) accompanied by a fantastic Miles Davis soundtrack. Murder in Paris doesn’t get any better.
Elevator to the Gallows
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 335
1957 / B&W / 1:66 anamorphic 16:9 / 88 min. / Ascenseur pour l’échafaud, Frantic / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date March 6, 2018 / 39.95
Starring: Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet, Georges Poujouly, Yori Bertin, Jean Wall, Iván Petrovich, Elga Andersen, Lino Ventura, Charles Denner.
Cinematography: Henri Decaë
Film Editor: Léonide Azar
Original Music: Miles Davis
Written by Louis Malle, Roger Nimier, Noël Calef from his novel
Produced by Jean Thuillier
Directed by Louis Malle
French director Louis Malle’s first fiction film is an assured and artistically adventurous suspense item. Unlike...
Elevator to the Gallows
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 335
1957 / B&W / 1:66 anamorphic 16:9 / 88 min. / Ascenseur pour l’échafaud, Frantic / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date March 6, 2018 / 39.95
Starring: Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet, Georges Poujouly, Yori Bertin, Jean Wall, Iván Petrovich, Elga Andersen, Lino Ventura, Charles Denner.
Cinematography: Henri Decaë
Film Editor: Léonide Azar
Original Music: Miles Davis
Written by Louis Malle, Roger Nimier, Noël Calef from his novel
Produced by Jean Thuillier
Directed by Louis Malle
French director Louis Malle’s first fiction film is an assured and artistically adventurous suspense item. Unlike...
- 3/3/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
A cinematic puzzle and a filmic detective piece, Serge Bromberg’s examination of a world-class filmmaker’s catastrophic, never-finished production fascinates and dazzles. If the particulars of H.G. Clouzot’s experimental epic of internal torment remain clouded, the astonishing visuals he created are a total knockout. Working with hours of uncut dailies and precise collaborator memories, Bromberg gives us the most interesting filmic autopsy on record. Incredible stuff!
Inferno
(L’enfer d’Henri-Georges Clouzot)
Blu-ray
Arrow Academy
2009 / Color & B&W / 1:78 widescreen / 100 min. / L’enfer d’Henri-Georges Clouzot / Street Date February 6, 2018 / Available from Arrow Video 34.95
Starring: Romy Schneider, Serge Reggiani, Bérénice Bejo, Jacques Gamblin, Dany Carrel, Jean-Claude Bercq, Mario David, Catherine Allégret, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Gilbert Amy, Jacques Douy, Jean-Louis Ducarme, Costa-Gavras, William Lubtchansky, Thi Lan Nguyen, Joël Stein, Bernard Stora, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Bernard Blier, Inès Clouzot, Yves Montand, Simone Signoret, Lino Ventura, Burt Lancaster.
Cinematography: Jérôme Krumenacker, Irina Lubtchansky...
Inferno
(L’enfer d’Henri-Georges Clouzot)
Blu-ray
Arrow Academy
2009 / Color & B&W / 1:78 widescreen / 100 min. / L’enfer d’Henri-Georges Clouzot / Street Date February 6, 2018 / Available from Arrow Video 34.95
Starring: Romy Schneider, Serge Reggiani, Bérénice Bejo, Jacques Gamblin, Dany Carrel, Jean-Claude Bercq, Mario David, Catherine Allégret, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Gilbert Amy, Jacques Douy, Jean-Louis Ducarme, Costa-Gavras, William Lubtchansky, Thi Lan Nguyen, Joël Stein, Bernard Stora, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Bernard Blier, Inès Clouzot, Yves Montand, Simone Signoret, Lino Ventura, Burt Lancaster.
Cinematography: Jérôme Krumenacker, Irina Lubtchansky...
- 2/20/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Welcome to a pair of vintage mysteries with George Simenon’s popular Inspector Jules Maigret, a gumshoe who gets the tough cases. Top kick French actor Jean Gabin is the cop who keeps cool, until it’s time to rattle a recalcitrant suspect. In two separate cases, he tracks a serial killer in the heart of Paris, and travels to his hometown to unearth a murder conspiracy.
Maigret Sets a Trap
and
Maigret and the St. Fiacre Case
Blu-ray (separate releases)
Kino Classics
1958, 1959 / B&W /1:37 flat; 1:66 widescreen / 118, 101 min. / Street Date December 5, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber: Trap, St. Fiacre / 29.95 ea.
Starring: Jean Gabin, Annie Girardot, Jean Desailly, Olivier Hussenot, Lucienne Bogaert, Paulette Dubost, Lino Ventura, Dominique Page / Jean Gabin, Michel Auclair, Valentine Tessier, Michel Vitold, Camille Guérini, Gabrielle Fontan, Micheline Luccioni, Jacques Marin, Paul Frankeur, Robert Hirsch.
Cinematography: Louis Page
Film Editor: Henri Taverna
Original Music: Paul Misraki...
Maigret Sets a Trap
and
Maigret and the St. Fiacre Case
Blu-ray (separate releases)
Kino Classics
1958, 1959 / B&W /1:37 flat; 1:66 widescreen / 118, 101 min. / Street Date December 5, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber: Trap, St. Fiacre / 29.95 ea.
Starring: Jean Gabin, Annie Girardot, Jean Desailly, Olivier Hussenot, Lucienne Bogaert, Paulette Dubost, Lino Ventura, Dominique Page / Jean Gabin, Michel Auclair, Valentine Tessier, Michel Vitold, Camille Guérini, Gabrielle Fontan, Micheline Luccioni, Jacques Marin, Paul Frankeur, Robert Hirsch.
Cinematography: Louis Page
Film Editor: Henri Taverna
Original Music: Paul Misraki...
- 12/9/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Ready for some full- on Japanese sentimentality? Superlative tough guy Ken Takakura takes us deep into heartbreak territory in search of a happy ending. Yoji Yamada’s Hokkaido road epic throws together a trio of ‘drifters of the heart’ to see if they can solve each other’s romantic dilemmas.
The Yellow Handkerchief
Blu-ray
Twilight Time
1978 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / Street Date November 14, 2017 / Shiawase no kiiroi hankachi / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 24.95
Starring: Ken Takakura, Chieko Baisho, Kaori Momoi, Tetsuya Takeda, Hisao Dazai, Makoto Akatsuka, Mari Okamato.
Cinematography: Tetsuo Takaha
Film Editor: Iwao Ishii
Original Music: Masaru Sato
Written by Yoji Yamada, Yoshitaka Asama
Produced by Toru Najima
Directed by Yoji Yamada
Americans can experience difficulty navigating the sometimes- confusing sphere of Japanese humor. Cartoons, children’s films, action movies often seem crude or cruel, but can also be unexpectedly delicate. And some cultural barriers are still there — nobody...
The Yellow Handkerchief
Blu-ray
Twilight Time
1978 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / Street Date November 14, 2017 / Shiawase no kiiroi hankachi / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 24.95
Starring: Ken Takakura, Chieko Baisho, Kaori Momoi, Tetsuya Takeda, Hisao Dazai, Makoto Akatsuka, Mari Okamato.
Cinematography: Tetsuo Takaha
Film Editor: Iwao Ishii
Original Music: Masaru Sato
Written by Yoji Yamada, Yoshitaka Asama
Produced by Toru Najima
Directed by Yoji Yamada
Americans can experience difficulty navigating the sometimes- confusing sphere of Japanese humor. Cartoons, children’s films, action movies often seem crude or cruel, but can also be unexpectedly delicate. And some cultural barriers are still there — nobody...
- 11/25/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
French stage and screen actor whose 1963 role in the comedy-thriller Les Tontons Flingueurs made him a star
Claude Rich, who has died aged 88, was a familiar face in French cinema and theatre for almost seven decades. The much-loved actor alternated between stage and screen, considering the latter as recreation, the former a passion. In fact, he had few really challenging roles on screen, despite having made films for the New Wave directors Alain Resnais, François Truffaut and Claude Chabrol. His reputation among French audiences derived from a string of mainstream comedies, especially in the 1960s, in which they cherished his ever-youthful, naive persona, his lilting voice and consistent smile, either charming or mischievous.
The film that made him a star was Les Tontons Flingueurs (1963), rendered variously in English as Monsieur Gangster or Crooks in Clover (literally, The Killer Uncles). Scripted by Michel Audiard, a master of witty and biting French argot,...
Claude Rich, who has died aged 88, was a familiar face in French cinema and theatre for almost seven decades. The much-loved actor alternated between stage and screen, considering the latter as recreation, the former a passion. In fact, he had few really challenging roles on screen, despite having made films for the New Wave directors Alain Resnais, François Truffaut and Claude Chabrol. His reputation among French audiences derived from a string of mainstream comedies, especially in the 1960s, in which they cherished his ever-youthful, naive persona, his lilting voice and consistent smile, either charming or mischievous.
The film that made him a star was Les Tontons Flingueurs (1963), rendered variously in English as Monsieur Gangster or Crooks in Clover (literally, The Killer Uncles). Scripted by Michel Audiard, a master of witty and biting French argot,...
- 8/13/2017
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
Born 1917, as Jean-Pierre Grumbach, son of Alsatian Jews, Jean-Pierre adopted the name Melville as his nom de guerre in 1940 when France fell to the German Nazis and he joined the French Resistance. He kept it as his stage name when he returned to France and began making films.
Melville at 100 at the American Cinematheque in Hollywood is showcasing eight of his films made from 1949 to to 1972 to honor the 100th year since his birth.
Americn Cinemtheque’s historic Egyptian Theater in Hollywood
The American Cinematheque has grown tremendously sophisticated since its early days creating the 1960 dream of “The Two Garys” (for those who remember). Still staffed by stalwarts Barbara Smith, Gwen Deglise, Margot Gerber and Tom Harris, and with a Board of Directors of Hollywood heavy hitters, it has also been renovated by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association which has spent more than $500,000 restoring its infrastructure and repainting its famous murals.
Melville at 100 at the American Cinematheque in Hollywood is showcasing eight of his films made from 1949 to to 1972 to honor the 100th year since his birth.
Americn Cinemtheque’s historic Egyptian Theater in Hollywood
The American Cinematheque has grown tremendously sophisticated since its early days creating the 1960 dream of “The Two Garys” (for those who remember). Still staffed by stalwarts Barbara Smith, Gwen Deglise, Margot Gerber and Tom Harris, and with a Board of Directors of Hollywood heavy hitters, it has also been renovated by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association which has spent more than $500,000 restoring its infrastructure and repainting its famous murals.
- 8/7/2017
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Charles Bronson plays a real-life Mafiosi in a period picture with a fine script, some good performances and a production so sloppy that the whole thing could be called The Anachronism Papers. Joseph Wiseman and Lino Ventura bring additional tough-guy star-power, and Bronson actually commits himself to the role — quite a change of pace for one of his later pictures.
The Valachi Papers
Blu-ray
Twilight Time
1972 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 125 min. / Street Date June 13, 2017 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store 29.95
Starring: Charles Bronson, Lino Ventura, Jill Ireland, Walter Chiari, Joseph Wiseman, Gerald S. O’Loughlin, Amedeo Nazzari, Fausto Tozzi, Pupella Maggio, Angelo Infanti, Guido Leontini.
Cinematography: Aldo Tonti
Film Editor: Johnny Dwyre, Monica Finzi
Original Music: Riz Ortolani, Armando Trovajoli
Written by Stephen Geller from the novel by Peter Maas
Produced by Dino De Laurentiis, Roger Duchet
Directed by Terence Young
In 2001 I received the plum assignment of editing a...
The Valachi Papers
Blu-ray
Twilight Time
1972 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 125 min. / Street Date June 13, 2017 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store 29.95
Starring: Charles Bronson, Lino Ventura, Jill Ireland, Walter Chiari, Joseph Wiseman, Gerald S. O’Loughlin, Amedeo Nazzari, Fausto Tozzi, Pupella Maggio, Angelo Infanti, Guido Leontini.
Cinematography: Aldo Tonti
Film Editor: Johnny Dwyre, Monica Finzi
Original Music: Riz Ortolani, Armando Trovajoli
Written by Stephen Geller from the novel by Peter Maas
Produced by Dino De Laurentiis, Roger Duchet
Directed by Terence Young
In 2001 I received the plum assignment of editing a...
- 7/15/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
By Fred Blosser
When Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather” emerged as a surprise box-office smash in the early months of 1972, studios and distributors hustled to meet popular demand for more movies about life in the Mob. In New York, a dubbed print of Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1967 film “Le Samourai” was hurriedly retitled and screened as “The Godson” in a masterful example of bait-and-switch marketing. Melville’s chilly, claustrophobic picture about a hit man portrayed by Alain Delon is a fine crime drama, but it had no connection to Coppola’s picture or, for that matter, to any aspect of American Mafia lore at all. “The Valachi Papers,” based on Peter Maas’ bestselling nonfiction book, followed as a more legitimate successor. Rushed through production by Dino De Laurentiis in spring and summer 1972, the film was scripted by Stephen Geller and directed by Terence Young. Shooting largely took place at De Laurentiis’ Rome studio.
When Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather” emerged as a surprise box-office smash in the early months of 1972, studios and distributors hustled to meet popular demand for more movies about life in the Mob. In New York, a dubbed print of Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1967 film “Le Samourai” was hurriedly retitled and screened as “The Godson” in a masterful example of bait-and-switch marketing. Melville’s chilly, claustrophobic picture about a hit man portrayed by Alain Delon is a fine crime drama, but it had no connection to Coppola’s picture or, for that matter, to any aspect of American Mafia lore at all. “The Valachi Papers,” based on Peter Maas’ bestselling nonfiction book, followed as a more legitimate successor. Rushed through production by Dino De Laurentiis in spring and summer 1972, the film was scripted by Stephen Geller and directed by Terence Young. Shooting largely took place at De Laurentiis’ Rome studio.
- 7/8/2017
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Claude Lelouch on Howard Hawks's Bringing Up Baby and his own La Bonne Année as films to watch to cheer you up: "Very good choices!" Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
The Cannes Film Festival is gearing up for tomorrow's opening night screening of Arnaud Desplechin's Ismael’s Ghosts (Les Fantômes D'Ismaël) starring Mathieu Amalric, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Marion Cotillard with Louis Garrel and Alba Rohrwacher, and a score by Grégoire Hetzel. Claude Lelouch with Un Homme Et Une Femme, starring Anouk Aimée and Jean-Louis Trintignant, in 1966 had won Palme d'Or honours and with Pierre Uytterhoeven, a Best Screenplay Oscar.
Mr and Mrs Gallois (Charles Denner and Judith Magre) with Simon (Jean‑Louis Trintignant) in Le Voyou: "One must learn how to detect cheaters."
Driving with Fanny Ardant, Dominique Pinon, and Audrey Dana in Roman De Gare, Abbas Kiarostami and cars, Un + Une in India with Jean Dujardin and Elsa Zylberstein,...
The Cannes Film Festival is gearing up for tomorrow's opening night screening of Arnaud Desplechin's Ismael’s Ghosts (Les Fantômes D'Ismaël) starring Mathieu Amalric, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Marion Cotillard with Louis Garrel and Alba Rohrwacher, and a score by Grégoire Hetzel. Claude Lelouch with Un Homme Et Une Femme, starring Anouk Aimée and Jean-Louis Trintignant, in 1966 had won Palme d'Or honours and with Pierre Uytterhoeven, a Best Screenplay Oscar.
Mr and Mrs Gallois (Charles Denner and Judith Magre) with Simon (Jean‑Louis Trintignant) in Le Voyou: "One must learn how to detect cheaters."
Driving with Fanny Ardant, Dominique Pinon, and Audrey Dana in Roman De Gare, Abbas Kiarostami and cars, Un + Une in India with Jean Dujardin and Elsa Zylberstein,...
- 5/16/2017
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Bertrand Tavernier on Jacques Prévert and Joseph Kosma's Les Feuilles Mortes with Yves Montand in Marcel Carné's Les Portes De La Nuit: "The birth of the song. I mean, that's a good scene." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
In the second installment of my conversation with Bertrand Tavernier on his Voyage À Travers Le Cinéma Français we go towards Ernst Lubitsch's Heaven Can Wait, Lino Ventura and Jean-Pierre Melville, Jean Gabin in Jean Delannoy's adaptation of Georges Simenon's Inspector Maigret, Bernard Blier in Henri Verneuil's Le Président, Nadja Tiller in Gilles Grangier's Le Désordre Et La Nuit, Eddie Constantine, and composers Jean-Jacques Grunenwald, George Van Parys, and Paul Misraki.
Martin Scorsese critiquing a Robert De Niro performance in a film by another director is unimaginable to Bertrand. "Distance is important to give you a wider vision of things."
Lino Ventura to Bertrand Tavernier on...
In the second installment of my conversation with Bertrand Tavernier on his Voyage À Travers Le Cinéma Français we go towards Ernst Lubitsch's Heaven Can Wait, Lino Ventura and Jean-Pierre Melville, Jean Gabin in Jean Delannoy's adaptation of Georges Simenon's Inspector Maigret, Bernard Blier in Henri Verneuil's Le Président, Nadja Tiller in Gilles Grangier's Le Désordre Et La Nuit, Eddie Constantine, and composers Jean-Jacques Grunenwald, George Van Parys, and Paul Misraki.
Martin Scorsese critiquing a Robert De Niro performance in a film by another director is unimaginable to Bertrand. "Distance is important to give you a wider vision of things."
Lino Ventura to Bertrand Tavernier on...
- 4/3/2017
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Claude Lelouch with Anne-Katrin Titze on Quentin Tarantino and Le Voyou: "He told me if he hadn't seen that film he wouldn't have made Pulp Fiction." Photo: Sylvie Sergent
On the afternoon of the Focus on French Cinema screenings at the French Institute Alliance Française in New York of Un + Une (One Plus One) with Jean Dujardin, Elsa Zylberstein, Christophe Lambert and Alice Pol, and Un Homme Et Une Femme (A Man And A Woman), starring Anouk Aimée and Jean-Louis Trintignant, I met with the director/screenwriter Claude Lelouch at his hotel.
Disguises in La Bonne Année (Happy New Year) with Lino Ventura and Charles Gérard, kidnapping in Le Voyou (The Crook) with Trintignant and Christine Lelouch, traveling with Fanny Ardant, Dominique Pinon, and Audrey Dana in Roman De Gare (Crossed Tracks), influencing Terrence Malick, Abbas Kiarostami and cars, Howard Hawks's Bringing Up Baby, Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, dogs versus cats,...
On the afternoon of the Focus on French Cinema screenings at the French Institute Alliance Française in New York of Un + Une (One Plus One) with Jean Dujardin, Elsa Zylberstein, Christophe Lambert and Alice Pol, and Un Homme Et Une Femme (A Man And A Woman), starring Anouk Aimée and Jean-Louis Trintignant, I met with the director/screenwriter Claude Lelouch at his hotel.
Disguises in La Bonne Année (Happy New Year) with Lino Ventura and Charles Gérard, kidnapping in Le Voyou (The Crook) with Trintignant and Christine Lelouch, traveling with Fanny Ardant, Dominique Pinon, and Audrey Dana in Roman De Gare (Crossed Tracks), influencing Terrence Malick, Abbas Kiarostami and cars, Howard Hawks's Bringing Up Baby, Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, dogs versus cats,...
- 3/30/2017
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
The Sicilian Clan
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1969 / Color B&W / 2:35 widescreen / 122 min. (French, without exit music); 118 min (American) / Le clan des Siciliens / Street Date February 7, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring Jean Gabin, Alain Delon, Lino Ventura, Irina Demick, Amedeo Nazzari, Danielle Volle, Philippe Baronnet, Karen Blanguernon, Elisa Cegani, Yves Lefebvre, Leopoldo Trieste, Sydney Chaplin.
Cinematography: Henri Decaë
Production design: Jacques Saulnier
Original Music: Ennio Morricone
Written by: Henri Verneuil, José Giovanni, Pierre Pelegri from a novel by Auguste Le Breton
Produced by: Jacques-e. Strauss
Directed by Henri Verneuil
American crime fanatics wary of European imports now have access to a fully Region-a disc of a big-star, big budget French-Italian-American gangster film from 1969, Henri Verneuil’s exciting The Sicilian Clan. It was filmed in two separate versions, a multi-lingual European original and a less exciting, English language cut for America. A huge hit overseas, The Sicilian Clan didn’t...
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1969 / Color B&W / 2:35 widescreen / 122 min. (French, without exit music); 118 min (American) / Le clan des Siciliens / Street Date February 7, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring Jean Gabin, Alain Delon, Lino Ventura, Irina Demick, Amedeo Nazzari, Danielle Volle, Philippe Baronnet, Karen Blanguernon, Elisa Cegani, Yves Lefebvre, Leopoldo Trieste, Sydney Chaplin.
Cinematography: Henri Decaë
Production design: Jacques Saulnier
Original Music: Ennio Morricone
Written by: Henri Verneuil, José Giovanni, Pierre Pelegri from a novel by Auguste Le Breton
Produced by: Jacques-e. Strauss
Directed by Henri Verneuil
American crime fanatics wary of European imports now have access to a fully Region-a disc of a big-star, big budget French-Italian-American gangster film from 1969, Henri Verneuil’s exciting The Sicilian Clan. It was filmed in two separate versions, a multi-lingual European original and a less exciting, English language cut for America. A huge hit overseas, The Sicilian Clan didn’t...
- 1/24/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Rebecca Clough Jan 13, 2017
Samuel L Jackson, Colin Farrell, Kirk Douglas, Denzel Washington and more, as we explore underrated political thrillers...
Ask someone for their favourite political thrillers and you’re likely to get a list of Oscar-winning classics, from JFK to The Day Of The Jackal, Blow Out to Argo. But what about those electrifying tales that have slipped under the radar, been largely forgotten or just didn’t get the love they deserved? Here are 25 political thrillers which are underappreciated but brilliant.
See related Star Wars: Episode IX lands Jurassic World director 25. The Amateur (1981)
Generally, the first hostage to get shot in a heist movie is considered insignificant; luckily this time the young woman killed by terrorists has a devoted boyfriend who vows to avenge her death. Charles Heller (John Savage) already works for the CIA, so he’s able to use secret information to blackmail his bosses into...
Samuel L Jackson, Colin Farrell, Kirk Douglas, Denzel Washington and more, as we explore underrated political thrillers...
Ask someone for their favourite political thrillers and you’re likely to get a list of Oscar-winning classics, from JFK to The Day Of The Jackal, Blow Out to Argo. But what about those electrifying tales that have slipped under the radar, been largely forgotten or just didn’t get the love they deserved? Here are 25 political thrillers which are underappreciated but brilliant.
See related Star Wars: Episode IX lands Jurassic World director 25. The Amateur (1981)
Generally, the first hostage to get shot in a heist movie is considered insignificant; luckily this time the young woman killed by terrorists has a devoted boyfriend who vows to avenge her death. Charles Heller (John Savage) already works for the CIA, so he’s able to use secret information to blackmail his bosses into...
- 12/22/2016
- Den of Geek
Bertrand Tavernier with Anne-Katrin Titze: "Josef von Sternberg's Macao. Dubbed in Vietnamese and I have never been able to watch the film again ..." Photo: Sophie Gluck
The day before the opening of the 54th New York Film Festival, I met with Bertrand Tavernier for an in-depth conversation on his documentary My Journey Through French Cinema (Voyage À Travers Le Cinéma Français) that spanned fashion from Mila Parély wearing Coco Chanel's ocelot coat in Jean Renoir's La Règle Du Jeu, the daring of Mireille Balin's deep décolleté in Jean Delannoy's Macao, L'Enfer Du Jeu, to Jean Paul Gaultier's reaction to Jacques Becker's Falbalas.
Bertrand Tavernier: "Also, it's learning about myself. How I discovered those films."
Also, Robert Mitchum in Vietnamese, never having to see Howard Hawks's Rio Bravo again, Yves Montand and the birth of Autumn Leaves, Ernst Lubitsch interactions between Lino Ventura...
The day before the opening of the 54th New York Film Festival, I met with Bertrand Tavernier for an in-depth conversation on his documentary My Journey Through French Cinema (Voyage À Travers Le Cinéma Français) that spanned fashion from Mila Parély wearing Coco Chanel's ocelot coat in Jean Renoir's La Règle Du Jeu, the daring of Mireille Balin's deep décolleté in Jean Delannoy's Macao, L'Enfer Du Jeu, to Jean Paul Gaultier's reaction to Jacques Becker's Falbalas.
Bertrand Tavernier: "Also, it's learning about myself. How I discovered those films."
Also, Robert Mitchum in Vietnamese, never having to see Howard Hawks's Rio Bravo again, Yves Montand and the birth of Autumn Leaves, Ernst Lubitsch interactions between Lino Ventura...
- 9/30/2016
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
The Eighth Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival — co-produced by Cinema St. Louis and the Webster University Film Series — celebrates St. Louis’ Gallic heritage and France’s cinematic legacy. The featured films span the decades from the 1920s through the early 1990s, offering a comprehensive overview of French cinema.
The fest is annually highlighted by significant restorations, and we’re especially pleased to present Jacques Rivette’s long-unavailable epic Out 1: Spectre Additional restoration highlights include Jean-Luc Godard’s A Married Woman and Max Ophüls’ too-little-seen From Mayerling To Sarajevo. Both Ophüls’ film and Louis Malle’s Elevator To The Gallows – with a jazz score by St. Louis-area native Miles Davis — screen from 35mm prints. All films will screen at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (47- E. Lockwood)
Music fans will further delight in the Rats & People Motion Picture Orchestra’s accompaniment and original score for Carl Th. Dreyer’s...
The fest is annually highlighted by significant restorations, and we’re especially pleased to present Jacques Rivette’s long-unavailable epic Out 1: Spectre Additional restoration highlights include Jean-Luc Godard’s A Married Woman and Max Ophüls’ too-little-seen From Mayerling To Sarajevo. Both Ophüls’ film and Louis Malle’s Elevator To The Gallows – with a jazz score by St. Louis-area native Miles Davis — screen from 35mm prints. All films will screen at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (47- E. Lockwood)
Music fans will further delight in the Rats & People Motion Picture Orchestra’s accompaniment and original score for Carl Th. Dreyer’s...
- 2/16/2016
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Although this bittersweet French adventure-drama was one of Alain Delon’s biggest domestic hits in 1967, it was dumped onto double bills by U.S. distributor Universal two years later and is undeservedly obscure today. Director Robert Enrico, perhaps best known to American audiences for the short film "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," directs Delon, Lino Ventura, and Joanna Shimkus as three amiable losers who strike out on a misbegotten search for buried treasure. Unavailable on home video, it’s a little gem, and was remade as a 1974 Japanese production titled "The Homeless."...
- 2/1/2016
- by Trailers From Hell
- Thompson on Hollywood
Although this bittersweet French adventure-drama was one of Alain Delon’s biggest domestic hits in 1967, it was dumped onto double bills by Us distributor Universal two years later and is undeservedly obscure today. Director Robert Enrico, perhaps best known to American audiences for the short film Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, directs Delon, Lino Ventura and Joanna Shimkus as three amiable losers who strike out on a misbegotten search for buried treasure. Unavailable on home video, it’s a little gem. Remade as a 1974 Japanese production titled The Homeless.
- 2/1/2016
- by TFH Team
- Trailers from Hell
Simone Simon in 'La Bête Humaine' 1938: Jean Renoir's film noir (photo: Jean Gabin and Simone Simon in 'La Bête Humaine') (See previous post: "'Cat People' 1942 Actress Simone Simon Remembered.") In the late 1930s, with her Hollywood career stalled while facing competition at 20th Century-Fox from another French import, Annabella (later Tyrone Power's wife), Simone Simon returned to France. Once there, she reestablished herself as an actress to be reckoned with in Jean Renoir's La Bête Humaine. An updated version of Émile Zola's 1890 novel, La Bête Humaine is enveloped in a dark, brooding atmosphere not uncommon in pre-World War II French films. Known for their "poetic realism," examples from that era include Renoir's own The Lower Depths (1936), Julien Duvivier's La Belle Équipe (1936) and Pépé le Moko (1937), and particularly Marcel Carné's Port of Shadows (1938) and Daybreak (1939).[11] This thematic and...
- 2/6/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Catherine Deneuve: César Award Besst Actress Record-Tier (photo: Catherine Deneuve in 'In the Courtyard / Dans la cour') (See previous post: "Kristen Stewart and Catherine Deneuve Make César Award History.") Catherine Deneuve has received 12 Best Actress César nominations to date. Deneuve's nods were for the following movies (year of film's release): Pierre Salvadori's In the Courtyard / Dans la Cour (2014). Emmanuelle Bercot's On My Way / Elle s'en va (2013). François Ozon's Potiche (2010). Nicole Garcia's Place Vendôme (1998). André Téchiné's Thieves / Les voleurs (1996). André Téchiné's My Favorite Season / Ma saison préférée (1993). Régis Wargnier's Indochine (1992). François Dupeyron's Strange Place for an Encounter / Drôle d'endroit pour une rencontre (1988). Jean-Pierre Mocky's Agent trouble (1987). André Téchiné's Hotel America / Hôtel des Amériques (1981). François Truffaut's The Last Metro / Le dernier métro (1980). Jean-Paul Rappeneau's Le sauvage (1975). Additionally, Catherine Deneuve was nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category...
- 1/30/2015
- by Steve Montgomery
- Alt Film Guide
“The British Film” collection was launched by Network Distributing in April 2013 as part of a five-year plan to release over 450 vintage British films through a deal with Studiocanal. Many of the films have never been available to own and will benefit from new transfers. We’ve already reviewed a couple of their previous releases, the Hammer horror pairing of Countess Dracula and Twins of Evil – and now we take a look at two more interesting British horrors of the 1970s…
The Shout
Stars: Alan Bates, Susannah York, John Hurt, Robert Stephens, Tim Curry | Directed by Jerzy Skolimowski
Synopsis: During a cricket match at an insane asylum between the inmates and the local villagers, Crossley and Graves keep themselves entertained by telling stories. Crossley tells of how he came to possess supernatural powers enabling him to kill with a single shout and although his companion dismisses the tale as an insane fantasy,...
The Shout
Stars: Alan Bates, Susannah York, John Hurt, Robert Stephens, Tim Curry | Directed by Jerzy Skolimowski
Synopsis: During a cricket match at an insane asylum between the inmates and the local villagers, Crossley and Graves keep themselves entertained by telling stories. Crossley tells of how he came to possess supernatural powers enabling him to kill with a single shout and although his companion dismisses the tale as an insane fantasy,...
- 10/26/2014
- by Phil Wheat
- Nerdly
By Adrian Smith
Although by the late 1970s Richard Burton's reputation was based more on his hard-drinking and turbulent marriages, he was still capable of demonstrating his powers as a dangerous and magnetic performer. Arguably by this time he had lost some of his former box-office draw and was taking roles in horror films like Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) and The Medusa Touch to pay the bills, yet he was still a mesmerising screen presence and in this film can even command the attention of the audience whilst lying on a hospital bed in a coma.
The Medusa Touch is set in London and begins with a murder. In the opening scene we see renowned author John Morlar (Richard Burton) watching news of a space shuttle disaster on TV. Within seconds he is being bludgeoned to death by a blunt instrument. It is something of a shock to see...
Although by the late 1970s Richard Burton's reputation was based more on his hard-drinking and turbulent marriages, he was still capable of demonstrating his powers as a dangerous and magnetic performer. Arguably by this time he had lost some of his former box-office draw and was taking roles in horror films like Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) and The Medusa Touch to pay the bills, yet he was still a mesmerising screen presence and in this film can even command the attention of the audience whilst lying on a hospital bed in a coma.
The Medusa Touch is set in London and begins with a murder. In the opening scene we see renowned author John Morlar (Richard Burton) watching news of a space shuttle disaster on TV. Within seconds he is being bludgeoned to death by a blunt instrument. It is something of a shock to see...
- 10/12/2014
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
I promise – it wasn’t my plan to have seven of the ten films on this portion of the list focus on World War II. But, if we look back at the biggest international conflicts of all time, World War II is the one that provides the most opportunity. It’s a chance for a number of different countries to look at the same war from different perspectives. In this portion alone, there’s a French film, a German film, a Hungarian film, a couple British/American films, and a few American films – all about varied aspects of World War II.
courtesy of fmvmagazine.com
40. The Killing Fields (1984)
Directed by: Roland Joffé
Conflict: Cambodian Civil War
For all the films made about World War II and larger scale conflicts, the few that depict smaller, more concentrated ones are sometimes more effective. Roland Joffé’s 1984 drama The Killing Fields hones in on Cambodia,...
courtesy of fmvmagazine.com
40. The Killing Fields (1984)
Directed by: Roland Joffé
Conflict: Cambodian Civil War
For all the films made about World War II and larger scale conflicts, the few that depict smaller, more concentrated ones are sometimes more effective. Roland Joffé’s 1984 drama The Killing Fields hones in on Cambodia,...
- 6/10/2014
- by Joshua Gaul
- SoundOnSight
Without really trying, William Friedkin has been on the cutting edge for nearly half a century.
He won Best Picture and Best Director for "The French Connection" (1971), followed it up with the scariest movie of all time (1973's "The Exorcist"), and followed that up with "Sorcerer" (1977), a movie so far ahead of its time that only in recent years has it been acknowledged as an overlooked masterpiece. (A newly-restored print of the allegorical adventure tale, released this week on Blu-ray, should help burnish the film's reputation.)
At 78, Friedkin continues to stay ahead of the pack. In his most recent movie, "Killer Joe" (2011), he cast Matthew McConaughey in an unlikely role as a corrupt cop/hitman, thus helping launch the "McConnaissance" that changed the actor's image and led to his recent Oscar victory for "Dallas Buyers Club." For his upcoming projects, he's thrilled to be working in digital and scoffs at...
He won Best Picture and Best Director for "The French Connection" (1971), followed it up with the scariest movie of all time (1973's "The Exorcist"), and followed that up with "Sorcerer" (1977), a movie so far ahead of its time that only in recent years has it been acknowledged as an overlooked masterpiece. (A newly-restored print of the allegorical adventure tale, released this week on Blu-ray, should help burnish the film's reputation.)
At 78, Friedkin continues to stay ahead of the pack. In his most recent movie, "Killer Joe" (2011), he cast Matthew McConaughey in an unlikely role as a corrupt cop/hitman, thus helping launch the "McConnaissance" that changed the actor's image and led to his recent Oscar victory for "Dallas Buyers Club." For his upcoming projects, he's thrilled to be working in digital and scoffs at...
- 4/25/2014
- by Gary Susman
- Moviefone
I interviewed William Friedkin back in 2012 (read part one here and part two here) and asked about the status of Sorcerer back then, knowing of the legal issues it was facing as Paramount and Universal couldn't seem to decide who owned the rights to the film. Friedkin was suing both studios in order to figure that out and hopefully get a remastered version of, what I believe is best called a "cult classic" at this point, the film released. Two years later, it finally arrives courtesy of Warner Home Video in all its tension laden madness. While Friedkin doesn't like the term, Sorcerer is a remake of French director Henri-Georges Clouzot's Wages of Fear (which itself was based on Georges Arnaud's novel), an amazing movie and one I've written about before, including my 2009 review of the Criterion Blu-ray. I can understand Friedkin's aversion to the word "remake" as...
- 4/18/2014
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
William Friedkin: Why Sorcerer’s Spell Refuses to Die
By
Alex Simon
In the mid-1970s, there were few American filmmakers riding as high as William Friedkin. The French Connection swept the 1971 Academy Awards, nabbing Friedkin a Best Director statuette. The Exorcist, released two years later, broke box office records to become one of the top grossing films of all time. Boasting creative power and freedom that most directors could only dream about, Friedkin opted to film an updated version of French auteur Henri-Georges Clouzot’s classic The Wages of Fear (1953).
The result, 1977’s Sorcerer, became one of the most notorious box office bombs of the decade. Its dark, unrelenting tale of four desperate, disparate men (Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer, Francisco Rabal, Amidou) who undertake a suicide mission by driving truckloads of nitroglycerine across the rugged South American jungle wasn’t what the changing tide of audience tastes were buying then,...
By
Alex Simon
In the mid-1970s, there were few American filmmakers riding as high as William Friedkin. The French Connection swept the 1971 Academy Awards, nabbing Friedkin a Best Director statuette. The Exorcist, released two years later, broke box office records to become one of the top grossing films of all time. Boasting creative power and freedom that most directors could only dream about, Friedkin opted to film an updated version of French auteur Henri-Georges Clouzot’s classic The Wages of Fear (1953).
The result, 1977’s Sorcerer, became one of the most notorious box office bombs of the decade. Its dark, unrelenting tale of four desperate, disparate men (Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer, Francisco Rabal, Amidou) who undertake a suicide mission by driving truckloads of nitroglycerine across the rugged South American jungle wasn’t what the changing tide of audience tastes were buying then,...
- 4/13/2014
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
Eôs Films
We French pride ourselves at being great at many things: Cooking elaborate meals, cultivating ridiculously expensive wine, making love while speaking with a thick accent English-speakers find inexplicably sexy, for example. But if there’s one aspect of French culture that’s particularly brag-worthy, it’s our films.
From the invention of the cinematograph by the Lumière Brothers to the New Wave, French cinema has established itself as one of the most revered in the world, perhaps second only to Hollywood in its influence over the rest of the world. Most filmgoers have seen or at least heard of such landmark works as Breathless, The 400 Blows, Grand Illusion or La Femme Nikita. As such, this list will focus on French films that, due to lack of media coverage, poor international distribution or their own unconventional nature, are not as well-known as the aforementioned ones but are just...
We French pride ourselves at being great at many things: Cooking elaborate meals, cultivating ridiculously expensive wine, making love while speaking with a thick accent English-speakers find inexplicably sexy, for example. But if there’s one aspect of French culture that’s particularly brag-worthy, it’s our films.
From the invention of the cinematograph by the Lumière Brothers to the New Wave, French cinema has established itself as one of the most revered in the world, perhaps second only to Hollywood in its influence over the rest of the world. Most filmgoers have seen or at least heard of such landmark works as Breathless, The 400 Blows, Grand Illusion or La Femme Nikita. As such, this list will focus on French films that, due to lack of media coverage, poor international distribution or their own unconventional nature, are not as well-known as the aforementioned ones but are just...
- 3/27/2014
- by Thomas Ricard
- Obsessed with Film
(Claude Sautet, 1960; BFI, 12)
Le roman policier and le film policier (now widely known by the reverse slang or verlan term "polar") have been staples of French popular culture for a century. Its soundtrack crackling with underworld argot, its air thick with smoke from Gauloises, its morality pulsating with romantic cynicism, the genre's golden age in the cinema was roughly between 1955 and the mid-70s. That's from the release of Rififi (the 1955 gangster movie directed by blacklisted American exile Jules Dassin, a movie much indebted to John Huston's 1950 The Asphalt Jungle) to the death in 1973 of Jean-Pierre Melville, the Americanophile cineaste and creator of definitive gangster flicks. These two decades encompass the classic polars of Jacques Becker, the best films of Lino Ventura (the French Bogart), the nouvelle vague (informally launched by a Louis Malle policier, Lift to the Scaffold, starring Ventura), and Godard's subversion of the genre in Breathless.
Le roman policier and le film policier (now widely known by the reverse slang or verlan term "polar") have been staples of French popular culture for a century. Its soundtrack crackling with underworld argot, its air thick with smoke from Gauloises, its morality pulsating with romantic cynicism, the genre's golden age in the cinema was roughly between 1955 and the mid-70s. That's from the release of Rififi (the 1955 gangster movie directed by blacklisted American exile Jules Dassin, a movie much indebted to John Huston's 1950 The Asphalt Jungle) to the death in 1973 of Jean-Pierre Melville, the Americanophile cineaste and creator of definitive gangster flicks. These two decades encompass the classic polars of Jacques Becker, the best films of Lino Ventura (the French Bogart), the nouvelle vague (informally launched by a Louis Malle policier, Lift to the Scaffold, starring Ventura), and Godard's subversion of the genre in Breathless.
- 3/23/2014
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Louis Malle's brash debut, now on rerelease, about a wealthy married woman who hatches a criminal plot is a brilliant, preposterous slice of noir suspense
Two years before Breathless, before Godard was talking about needing a girl and a gun, 26-year-old Louis Malle unveiled this brash debut: a brilliant, preposterous slice of noir-suspense realism and Highsmithian mistaken identity, imbued with the poetry of romantic despair, mostly voiced directly into the camera by Jeanne Moreau – a captivating kind of choric-fatale, with dark sensuous shadows under the eyes. She is a wealthy married woman, Mme Florence Cabala, who in this era when capital punishment (the "scaffold") was very much on France's statute book, hatches the imperfect crime with her lover, ex‑paratrooper Julien (Maurice Ronet). Chaotically, their paths cross with gamine florist's assistant, Véronique (Yori Bertin), and her teen boyfriend, Louis (Georges Poujouly). They are the younger generation, contemptuous of their...
Two years before Breathless, before Godard was talking about needing a girl and a gun, 26-year-old Louis Malle unveiled this brash debut: a brilliant, preposterous slice of noir-suspense realism and Highsmithian mistaken identity, imbued with the poetry of romantic despair, mostly voiced directly into the camera by Jeanne Moreau – a captivating kind of choric-fatale, with dark sensuous shadows under the eyes. She is a wealthy married woman, Mme Florence Cabala, who in this era when capital punishment (the "scaffold") was very much on France's statute book, hatches the imperfect crime with her lover, ex‑paratrooper Julien (Maurice Ronet). Chaotically, their paths cross with gamine florist's assistant, Véronique (Yori Bertin), and her teen boyfriend, Louis (Georges Poujouly). They are the younger generation, contemptuous of their...
- 2/7/2014
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
‘La Cage aux Folles’ director Edouard Molinaro, who collaborated with Catherine Deneuve, Jeanne Moreau, Orson Welles, dead at 85 Edouard Molinaro, best known internationally for the late ’70s box office comedy hit La Cage aux Folles, which earned him a Best Director Academy Award nomination, died of lung failure on December 7, 2013, at a Paris hospital. Molinaro was 85. Born on May 31, 1928, in Bordeaux, in southwestern France, to a middle-class family, Molinaro began his six-decade-long film and television career in the mid-’40s, directing narrative and industrial shorts such as Evasion (1946), the Death parable Un monsieur très chic ("A Very Elegant Gentleman," 1948), and Le verbe en chair / The Word in the Flesh (1950), in which a poet realizes that greed is everywhere — including his own heart. At the time, Molinaro also worked as an assistant director, collaborating with, among others, Robert Vernay (the 1954 version of The Count of Monte Cristo, starring Jean Marais) and...
- 12/8/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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