FRENCH
ACTION/THRILLERS
THE PROTECTOR (1974)-IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBS. I remember being very disappointed by Paul Schrader’s HARDCORE. George C Scott was his usual hammy performance, Season Hubley was about as sexy as a slab of bacon and of course the usual Hollywood happy ending. Fortunately 5 years previously, the French made THE PROTECTOR (1974). A father is sent to prison while his daughter was a small child. By the time he gets out, he discovers she has run off to be a prostitute. He sets off to find and rescue her and it’s here that EUROTRASH kicks in. Turns out she LOVES being a prostitute, in fact she loves it so much she marries her pimp! So, what’s a a father to do? He heads back home only to discover she gets violently murdered. Finally he gets to kick it into high gear and tracks down everyone involved in her sordid lifestyle and executes them. Bruno Cremer and Robert Hossein costar.
THE SYRINGE (1984)-IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director: Sergio Gobbi, Stars: Daniel Auteuil, Marisa Berenson, Marcel Bozzuffi. Things start off pretty well with scenes of random crimes and shootings which recall VIOLENT NAPLES, with cars being set on fire and gang warfare erupting. Unfortunately things deteriorate with the introduction of about four street gangs (who quickly become muddled) who lack menace and prance around in dated '80s attire in a big rip-off of THE WARRIORS. There's a blaxploitation angle to the film which details the activities of a black gang, including a drugs pusher, and some very silly dialogue to go along with it. Auteuil fans should have a field day watching him horsing around here, with a poster for TAXI DRIVER looming in his apartment. Villain is well-played by Marcel Bozzuffi as the racist police captain who's behind a lot of the gang trouble.
THE MACHINE (1994)-IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBS. Director: François Dupeyron, Stars: Gérard Depardieu, Nathalie Baye, Didier Bourdon. The psychiatrist Marc Laxroix is a studious scientist of the brains of criminals. He has an unhappy and loveless marriage with his wife Marie Lacroix and they have a boy, Léonard Lacroix. Marc has also a mistress, Marianne, who is also his confidante. Marc has secretly built a machine to study the mind of a person to another one in his old house, but he has not tested it yet, and Marianne is the only person who knows. When the serial-killer Michel Zyto is sentenced to life in the institution where Marc works, he decides to study the mind of the psychopath. Then he brings Zyto to use the machine and their minds are exchanged. When Marc asks Zyto to press a green button to restore their minds, Zyto refuses and uses Marc's body to lock up Marc trapped in his body in the institution. Further, he goes to Marc's house to stay with his family. Will Marc retrieve his body?
MAKE YOUR BETS LADIES (1965)-IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director: Marcel Ophüls. Stars: Eddie Constantine, Nelly Benedetti, Daniel Ceccaldi. Exciting Eddie Constantine outing finds Eddie playing a special agent searching for missing NATO weapons. When he encounters a scientist who has invented a ring that emits a paralysis spray, the hard-boiled spy saves the day with some very Bondian heroics...
THE HOSTAGE GANG (1973)-IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director : Édouard Molinaro, Cast : Daniel Cauchy, Bulle Ogier, Gilles Ségal. A drifter with a fearfully short fuse falls in and out of prison; between assaults and armed robberies, he marries a call girl and the hold-ups continue until they're arrested. Then, they take a judge hostage to bargain for their release. Their ruthless teamwork has none of the sentimentally that oozed through "Bonnie and Clyde." Here, the tension between the hard-headed practicality and the extreme carelessness of the outlaws yields an intriguing characterization.
THE CAGE (1963)-IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBS. Director: Robert Darène, Stars: Marina Vlady, Jean Servais, Muriel David. After studying medicine in France ,David comes back to his native Gabon to treat his compatriots. He meets Oyana ,his former sweetheart ,and both laugh at the old-fashioned traditions .The young physician is sent to the bush where he is to vaccinate the somewhat reluctant population.He meets Rispal, a white man who tells him there are things he ignores in his own country where legends ,witches and superstitions abound. Most amazing thing, this embittered man has a wife, Isabelle ,a beautiful woman who wanders through the bush. The first part of this Gabon-French co-production is close to documentary. With Isabelle's appearance, halfway through, the movie is plunged into a strange atmosphere with something of Edgar Poe: Isabelle appears first on a portrait hanging on the wall .Then little by little, an idea dawns upon the viewer: Is Isabelle real? Is Risdal's wife the pet mouse he keeps in a small cage? Does the white man want to challenge the young black scientist? And his fiancée thinks that she might be the legendary White Woman (Mamy Watta, alternate title of the film) who inflames the black man's desire.
LEGITIMATE VIOLENCE (1982)-IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director: Serge Leroy, Stars: Claude Brasseur, Véronique Genest, Thierry Lhermitte. In the course of a violent hold-up at Deauville station, several innocent bystanders are shot dead. The victims include a politician, Robert Andréani, and three members of the same family. Devastated by the death of his wife, daughter and mother, Martin Modot resolves that their killers will be brought to justice. When the police fail to make any progress in their investigation, he decides to take matters into his own hands, with the support of a neo-fascist vigilante organisation. What Modot doesn’t realise is that the slaughter of his family was collateral damage in a carefully planned political assassination. His bid for vengeance will serve only those who were behind the killings and who now seek to cover their tracks...
TENDER SCOUNDREL (1966)-IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director: Jean Becker, Stars: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Nadja Tiller, Jean-Pierre Marielle. Tony Maréchal is a professional seducer. Having conquered countless women, proclaims that there is none that can resist his charm. To prove this makes a difficult challenge: to seduce baroness Minna von Strasshofer. The third film which reunites director Jean Becker and actor Jean-Paul Belmondo is an outlandish comedy which manages to capture perfectly the exuberance of the swinging’60s. The jokes and comic situations fall fast and furious, bolstered by a funny script from Michel Audiard and some typically outrageous Belmondo stunts. The result is a non-stop running joke as Belmondo alternately seduces pretty women and then struggles to extricate himself from his conquests. It is a witty and genuinely funny satire on the traditional Don Juan theme.
AGRESSION (1975)-UNCUT 96 MINUTE VERSION, SOME SCENES IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director: Gérard Pirès, Stars: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Catherine Deneuve, Claude Brasseur. An ordinary man is driven to violence in the name of revenge in this drama. Paul Varlin (Jean-Louis Trintignant) is a businessman who decides to take his wife and daughter on a vacation. While stopping for gas, Varlin's wife is accosted by a gang of motorcycle thugs, who progress from ogling her legs to raping both the wife and young girl, and then killing them both. When Varlin discovers this horrible crime, he takes it upon himself to track down and kill the bikers in the name of justice.
1001 WAYS TO LOVE (1968)-IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director: Jean-Claude Roy, Stars: Jacques Bernard, Dany Saril, Viviane Landford. Sufficently sleazy French film with plenty of nudity for its time. A seasoned lady-killer introduces a series of Decameronic vignettes about men's resourcefulness in seducing women and the price some of them have to pay for it.
THE CHILD WOMAN (1980)-IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director: Raphaële Billetdoux, Stars: Klaus Kinski, Pénélope Palmer, Michel Robin. SCANDALOUS FILM STARRING KLAUS KINSKI AS A POTENTIAL CHILD PREDATOR! A small village in the north of France. Elizabeth, almost thirteen, is the daughter of the hairdressers of the town. For more than three years she has been secretly visiting Marcel, a forty-year-old mute man, who works as a caretaker at a castle, and whom the villagers call simple-minded. They have their rites, their games, their habits- their quarrels too, quickly forgotten and forgiven. Their relation is secret and strange, she is being in turn authoritarian and submissive. But, this little game becomes heavy while the girl becomes a young girl. One day, Elisabeth, who plays the organ at the church, passes the competition of the conservatory brilliantly. She leaves the village without regret, while Marcel can not bear her absence.
EVERYONE WANTS TO KILL ME (1957)-IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director: Henri Decoin, Stars: François Périer, Peter van Eyck, Anouk Aimée. Immediately after committing their crime, five robbers rush away in their car in order to hide the loot safely. Then they stage a drunken break-in in a vodka brewery. Deliberately allowing themselves to get caught, they are hauled before a judge and sentenced to prison. Meanwhile no-one suspects them of the robbery. It all looks good - or, at least, it all looked good on paper...Good, suspenseful crime thriller about a gang of criminals whose quest for the Perfect Alibi turns awry, in a remarkably blood-soaked manner. Much of the story is set in a cramped prison environment where it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish friend from bystander or foe.
STAN THE FLASHER (1990)-IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBS. Director: Serge Gainsbourg (as Gainsbourg), Stars: Claude Berri, Aurore Clément, Élodie Bouchez. There's really no 2 ways about it, SERGE GAINSBOURG WAS A FUCKING PERVERT!! Stan (Claude Berri) is an English teacher who cannot retain his passionate desires for the 17/18 year old Natacha (Elodie Bouchez). Predictably, she refuses his poetic, Shakespearean advances and leaves Stan more angry and frustrated. His frustration is reinforced by his newfound impotency. He feels inadequate in life and makes self-destructive decisions because of it. His wife, Aurore (Aurore Clement) cannot console him either. She understands Stan more than any individual in the film, but refuses to have intercourse with him. Therefore, denying Stan his most primitive desire, and fueling his dark hobby of pedophilia.
MISDEAL (1969)-IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director: Sergio Gobbi, Stars: Pierre Vaneck, Elsa Martinelli, Robert HosseinIn this thrilling mystery of mistaken identity, Jacques (Pierre Vaneck) is a piano player in a nightclub who is approached by a man he never met before. The stranger offers him a job posing as the husband of a mentally challenged woman. He will be rewarded for taking care of the woman. Since his contract has expired at the club, he readily accepts the proposition. The stranger turns out to be the valet of the woman, who other than playing with decapitated dolls, seems quite normal. Jacques and the woman end up falling in love. He looks just like her husband who disappeared during an African safari. It turns out the missing man is a former Nazi hiding out from the international police. Soon agents converge on the house along with the man who had supposedly vanished, leading to an inevitable showdown.
THE KILLER (1972)-IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director: Denys de La Patellière, Stars: Jean Gabin, Fabio Testi, Uschi Glas. Whilst being transferred to a psychiatric hospital, a ruthless serial-killer Gassot makes a break and goes on the run. He arrives in Marseilles, intending to escape abroad. Here, he falls for a young prostitute, Gerda, whom he takes to Paris, having disposed of her entourage. An ageing police commissioner, Le Guen, is assigned to track down and arrest Gassot. Since Le Guen was the man who arrested Gassot in the first place, he would appear to be the best man to recapture him. However, his superior, Tellier, disapproves of his brutal methods...
7 DEATHS BY PRESCRIPTION (1975)-IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director: Jacques Rouffio, Stars: Michel Piccoli, Gérard Depardieu, Jane Birkin, and Marina Vlady. Dr. Brézé and his sons, all surgeons with limited abilities fight any competition on their sector with all means. Especially a well-known operating surgeon Pierre Losseray, which wants to operate again after a cardiac infarct and a longer recovery break. Night for night he is terrorized by the old Brézé with calls, being accused by him of the murder of patients, threatens with measures of the physician chamber. Extremely sleazy tale of murder.
THE DOMINICI AFFAIR (1973)-IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director: Claude Bernard-Aubert, Stars: Jean Gabin, Gerard Depardieu, Victor Lanoux, Henri Vilbert. In August 1952, a family of British tourists is found by the roadside in Haute Provence, brutally murdered. In the ensuing, very public, investigation a local landowner, 75 year old Gaston Dominici, is arrested for the murders, having been denounced by his sons. Under police interrogation, Dominici confesses to have killed the family and it looks certain that he will be charged, tried and sentenced to death. But then the case begins to collapse. The old man retracts his confession and the lack of evidence against him becomes apparent… A crime. a case. a young Depardieu. an old Gabin. the tension. and the impecable story about family, tradition, guilt and justice. a film about the way to explore a case , having the right story, the best cast. and, sure, a huge Jean Gabin in a role of his last years. a film who propose questions. in the manner to convince. to change rules. to open new perspectives. one of works presenting the clear image of a world defining, in many aspects, us, people from old societies, with strong rules and deep vulnerabilities, near an English family under sky , on a road.
JOY (1983)-WIDESCREEN AND UNCUT (20 EXTRA SLEAZY MINUTES!!) , IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director: Sergio Bergonzelli (as Serge Bergon), Stars: Claudia Udy, Gérard-Antoine Huart, Agnès Torrent. The film itself revolves around supermodel, Joy (Claudia Udy) and her search for sexual fulfilment. This of course entails roaming the earth in search of that elusively perfect man. This movie is a very easy viewer indeed, what with Claudia Udy naked for most of the film. Plus Bergonzelli really knows how to execute all the pre-requisites of a good film. The acting was a bit bland at times and well there's not much in the way of plot or story. It does on the other hand have some of the most amazing sets and camera work... which is where Bergonzelli really shines!
THE CRAZY NUNS (1975)-IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBS, UNCUT 96 MINUTE PRINT. FIRST TIME THIS JESUS FRANCO FILM HAS APPEARED IN ENGLISH! Director: Jesús Franco (as Clifford Brown), Stars: Lina Romay, Fred Williams, Olivier Mathot In an unspecified region of Middle America at an unspecified time in history, revolutionary hunk Carlos Ribas (Fred Williams) holes up in a brothel, where he is protected from the authorities by the cigar-wielding Madame Simone (Monica Swinn.) In the opening scenes the brothel is busted by the pompous General Pancho López (Richard Bigotini), who arrests Ribas then takes all the girls prisoner with the intention of presenting them as a gift to his troops. However, these girls are resourceful and as they are being carted off to the camp, they hijack their captors then flee into the woods. The first place they come to is a deserted Benedictine Monastery, where they quickly make a deal with the caretaker (Alfred Baillou), and will don the habits of nuns until the civil-war passes. López and his men soon pick up the trail, but when they enter the holy ground they are easily fooled by the disguised prostitutes. Nonetheless, López leaves a small detachment to keep watch over the nuns. These men are all as dim-witted as their leader and are soon distracted and seduced, one by one. Meanwhile, it is publicly announced that Ribas will be executed, so the girls have to get involved and rescue ''this great patriot, especially one so well hung.'' After kidnapping the wayward son of the Regional Governor (Olivier Mathot), the girls are now ready to make a deal at sword-point....
THE FRENCH GAME (1960)-IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director: Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Stars: Françoise Brion, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Raymond Gérôme. A young painter, François, goes for a vacation on the French Riviera with Dominique, a pretty young secretary who intends to spend the vacation with a married Chilean diplomat. The diplomat fails to appear, however, and the couple spend their time together, swimming, lazing on the beach, and sharing a bed...
THE OTHERS (1975)-IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBS, RARE 127 MINUTE VERSION! Director: Hugo Santiago, Stars: Maurice Born, Noëlle Châtelet, Patrice Dally. "The son of a Paris bookseller commits suicide. His father, a man of fifty and a few years old, who thought he had understood him well, now feels that he has never known him and seeks him in those who were his friends." (Jorge Luis Borges). A tale of love and death. A quest for identity, through the twists and turns of magic, schizophrenia, duplication and mental images. Santiago's film transgresses the classic laws of storytelling and places the viewer at the heart of polyphonic fiction. “The Others, like all of Hugo Santiago's films, has an incredible aesthetic novelty, almost unacceptable. Besides, the film was not accepted! He was defended by great intellectuals, but he was not accepted. The Others is a brilliant and cursed film, like all the films of Hugo Santiago, without exception. WEIRD AND SLEAZY AT THE SAME TIME!
ILS aka THEM (1970)-IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBS FOR THE FIRST TIME. VERY RARE FRENCH SF FILM! Director: Jean-Daniel Simon, Stars: Michel Duchaussoy, Alexandra Stewart, Charles Vanel. A young painter becomes increasingly hostile and confrontational after the death of his father. He eventually finds a friend in an aging scientist who is working on a strange experiment. An artist grows hateful of commercial demands on his questionable talents when his friend and artist commits suicide. He puts the blame for his friend's death on an art critic and a shady art dealer. He is able to take out his frustrations on the pretentious critic at a party. When an elderly man moves into the boarding house, he brings a machine he invented that can make people realize their subconscious dreams...
CITY OF UNSPEAKABLE FEAR (1964)-IN FRENCH WITH ENGISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director: Jean-Pierre Mocky, Stars: Bourvil, Jean-Louis Barrault, Francis Blanche. When a notorious forger, Mickey-le -Bénédictin, escapes police custody and execution, Inspector Triquet resolves to find him and let him know that, under French law, he is now a free man. Triquet’s hunt leads him to the provincial town of Barges, where the inhabitants are unutterably weird. In the course of Triquet’s haphazard investigation, people start to die – first Franqui, who has been spying on his neighbours, next the pharmacist... Then the legend of a mysterious wild beast becomes reality when a strange creature is sighted in the nearby countryside. What other terrible secrets does the town of Barges conceal...?
WITHOUT APPARENT MOTIVE (1971)-LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director: Philippe Labro, Writers: Evan Hunter (novel), Stars: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Dominique Sanda, Sacha Distel, Laura Antonelli. A sniper is killing off a series of people who seem to be connected in some way. A detective investigating the case seems to come into contact with the victims shortly before they are dispatched. This is a stylish French murder-mystery set in Nice. It's well served on the acting personnel front. Jean-Louis Trintignant is very good in the central role as the brooding detective; while there is interesting support from others, such Stéphane Audran (leading lady from several Claude Chabrol films) and Jean-Pierre Marielle (who played a memorable flamboyant homosexual private investigator in Dario Argento's giallo Four Flies on Grey Velvet). Another welcome addition is Ennio Morricone's contribution; once again his score is excellent and adds to the atmosphere greatly. The dark story is offset effectively by its beautiful sunny locations too. It adds a bit of glamour to the grime.