The Danish/French Babette's Feast is based on a story by Isak Dinesen, also the source of the very different Out of Africa (1985). Stephane Audran plays Babette, a 19th century Parisian political refugee who seeks shelter in a rough Danish coastal town. Philippa (Bodil Kjer) and Martina (Birgitte Federspiel), the elderly daughters of the town's ...
Samuel Fuller's valedictory war picture, The Big Red One follows the First Infantry Division from Africa to Europe during the years 1942 through 1945. Lee Marvin portrays the division sergeant; he's tough and experienced, to be sure, but he takes on his job with cool professionalism rather than Hollywood bravado. Based on Fuller's own experiences, ...
The Black Bird is a satirical sequel to The Maltese Falcon. George Segal plays Sam Spade Jr., who has inherited his dad's detective agency in a seedy section of San Francisco. The ubiquitous, priceless Maltese Falcon, which eluded Bogart and company in the 1941 film, surfaces once again. This time, Spade's friends and foes include femme fatales ...
Bored, wealthy Parisian socialite Frederique (Stéphane Audran, then director Claude Chabrol's wife and the star of many of his films) picks up young sidewalk artist Why (Jacqueline Sassard), brings her home, offers her a nice hot bath and coffee, and seduces her. Then Why follows Frederique to the latter's Saint-Tropez villa, where they alter ...
Adapted from a novel by Georges Simenon, Betty stars Marie Trintignant in the title role. A drunken wastrel, Betty is adopted after a fashion by an older female alcoholic named Laure, played by director Claude Chabrol's wife at the time, Stéphane Audran. Fascinated by Betty's hard-luck tales, Laure endeavors to protect the younger woman from the ...
Based on pulp master Jim Thompson's Pop. 1280, Bertrand Tavernier's Coup de Torchon is a sardonic thriller that remains true to its source's spirit, even as it transposes the action from the American South to colonial West Africa. Lucien (Philippe Noiret) is the bumbling police chief of Bourkasa, a dusty outpost in rural Senegal. Badgered by local ...
Sexual frustration is the focus of this Hitchcockian thriller from French director Claude Chabrol. Schoolteacher Hélène (Stéphane Audran) comes to a small Périgord village to begin a new job. She is soon romanced by the local butcher, Popaul (Jean Yanne), but is distracted by her job and memories of a previous ill-fated relationship. A series of ...
In typical Luis Buñuel fashion, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie surrealistically skewers the conventions of society. Buñuel applies his surrealist touch to a mundane event: a dinner party that may never come to pass. A group of well-to-do friends attempt to gather for a social evening, but are thwarted at every turn. The initial problem ...
In this suspense thriller inspired by the novel Eye of the Beholder by Marc Behm, Catherine (Isabelle Adjani), a serial killer, seduces men and then murders them just before moving on to the next victim. She spreads her mayhem through various countries in Europe, only slightly ahead of the mentally anguished detective (Michel Serrault) who tracks ...
Though made in Britain and Europe, Eagle's Wing qualifies as a Western. Easterner Pike (Martin Sheen) does a lot of growing up in a hurry when he becomes a trapper out-West. By mid-film, Pike is accomplished enough to compete with Comanche chief White Bull (Sam Waterston, there's a masterpiece of nontypecasting!) over possession of a white, wild ...
A sextet of French filmmakers collaborated on Six in Paris (originally Paris vu Par...) Jean Douchet directed the film's first episode, "Saint Germain-des-Pres," the story of the up-and-down relationship between a male model (Jean-Francois Chappey) and an American coed (Barbara Wilkin). Jean Rouch's "Gare du Nord" is a haunting twist-of-fate tale ...
Iconoclastic film director Samuel Fuller spent decades nurturing his dream project, a movie about his experiences in the Army's First Infantry Division during World War II, but it wasn't until 1979 that he was able to finally bring the picture before the cameras. Unfortunately, Fuller was forced by his producers to work with a scaled-down budget, ...
Alain Moreau (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is a French cop whose colleagues make a startling discovery -- a man named Mikhail, who was killed in a high-speed chase with police, looks exactly like him. Curious about the stranger with his face, Alain is told by his mother Chantal (Stephane Audran) that Mikhail was in fact his twin brother, whom her poor ...
In a routine murder mystery based on a novel by Dominique Roulet, a cruel, wheelchair-bound invalid (Stephane Audran) who consistently terrorizes her teen son Louis (Lucas Belvaux) into abject obedience, is threatened with the loss of her home by a conniving trio who want her property as part of a deal for a lucrative development project. The ...
The four young women work at the same place and each has to put up with a lecherous supervisor who talks out of one side of his mouth about good morals while the other side has the opposite message. One of the women, Jane (Bernadette Lafont) fixes herself up in a somewhat vulgar manner and goes out to pick up men, which fails to produce any real ...
Stéphane Audran plays the title character, Hélène Desvallées, the bored wife of insurance executive Charles Desvallées (Michel Bouquet). Charles suspects Hélène of playing the field, so he has a private detective locate his wife's lover, author Victor Pegala (Maurice Ronet). Confronting Victor, Charles tries to adopt an air of indifference, but ...
Based on a novel by Charlotte Armstrong, the story concerns Helene (Stephane Audran), the wife of a hopeless would-be writer and drug addict. Her husband's best friend tries to lay a trap for Helene, so that she will be forced to pay dearly for a divorce settlement. Also conspiring against Helene is her father-in-law, who wishes to wrest her child ...
Claude Chabrol's Violette was based on the true story of 19-year-old Violette Noziere, who in the 1930s was tried and convicted for the poisoning of her father and the attempted murder of her mother. As played by Isabelle Huppert (who won several awards for her performance), Violette is a thrill-seeking girl who falls for a no-good slug from the ...
Making a rare visit to Canada, Claude Chabrol cowrote and directed the low-pressure psychological melodrama Blood Relatives (Les Liens de sang). Donald Sutherland and Donald Pleasence head the cast in this story of the aftermath of a brutal murder. The victim, a 17-year-old girl, was apparently raped before she died, leading Carella (Sutherland) ...
In this Hitchcockian French thriller directed by Claude Chabrol, marital infidelity once again leads to murder. Set in a small village, the plot gets underway when Mayor Paul Delamaire (Claude Piéplu) discovers that his wife Lucienne (Stéphane Audran) is cheating on him. Her lover is the mayor's own deputy, Pierre (Michel Piccoli), whom Delamaire ...
An Italian-French-Spanish version of the much-filmed Agatha Christie story, this film is strangely set in Iran, not Great Britain. Ten guests are invited to a remote desert inn and informed that the mysterious host has described in a nursery rhyme how they will all die during the gathering. One by one, the characters, played by such Continental ...
Ugo Tognazzi and Michel Serrault go through their well-worn passes in this third sequel to their international hit La Cage aux Folles. In La Cage aux Folles 3: The Wedding the element of Woman is introduced to the carefree world of the middle-aged gay couple of Renato (Ugo Tognazzi) and Albin (Michel Serrault). In this effort, Albin stands to ...
We guarantee every item's condition, as described on Alibris. If you are not satisfied that an item is as described, return your purchase for a refund.
Portions of content provided by All Music Guide or All Movie Guide. © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. All Music Guide and All Movie Guide are registered Trademarks of All Media Guide, LLC.