Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables, regarded
by many as the most important literary work from France, has provided the source for numerous
film... [More...]
This is the first of Marcel Pagnol’s three ambitious film adaptations of novels by Jean
Giono (followed by Regain and La Femme du boulanger). Like many of
Pagnol’s films... [More...]
Director Yves Allégret and screenwriter Jacques Sigurd followed their successful
Dédée
d’Anvers (1948) with this bleak noir melodrama featuring rising star Gérard
Philipe... [More...]
Although unmistakably a classic of French cinema, Le plaisir is marginally less
satisfying than Ophül’s other attempts at films tableaux (La Ronde and Madame
de…)... [More...]
Whilst not in the same league as some of Jacques Becker’s better films (most notably
Casque d’or, which was made
immediately before this one)... [More...]
War-time heroes reduced to mercenary activities in some remote colonial backwater.
The desperation of a passionate woman to escape a loveless marriage and find some meaning
in her life... [More...]
One of the few films of the film noir genre which can genuinely be described as a masterpiece,
Du rififi chez les hommes occupies a pivotal position in French cinema history... [More...]
Celui qui doit mourir was the second film that
director Jules Dassin made in France – after the influential noir masterpiece
Du rififi chez les homes (1955)... [More...]
This fairly standard crime thriller Yves Allégret has an exceptional cast, including
Edwige Feuillère and Jean Servais. A young Alain Delon distinguishes himself
in his first film role... [More...]
A comparatively obscure entry in the Buñuel canon, La Fièvre monte à
El Pao certainly does not show the director at his best. Despite some memorable
moments (most notably the film’s final five... [More...]
This energetic adventure farce owes as much to the Tintin stories of Hergé
as to the James Bond films. Filmed almost entirely on location in Brasil... [More...]
Generally, fairy tales and live action cinema are two things which are best kept well
apart, the marriage of the two being something which few would ever want to experience
whilst stone-cold sober and without the comforting... [More...]
