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
It’s a big international action epic, filmed in Mexico with a French director. Anthony Quinn is an 18th-century bandit who liberates a Mexican hamlet from marauding Yaqui Indians and a villainous Charles Bronson. Quinn is good, and all the necessary elements are present: fights, handsome scenery and a big battle… but it’s fairly tepid stuff, simplified and prettified. Leave it to Ennio Morricone’s epic music score to bind it all together. With Anjanette Comer, Sam Jaffe, Silvia Pinal and the same fifteen or so well-connected actors that cornered roles in all big Mexican films made with foreign money.
Guns for San Sebastian
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1968 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 111 min. / La bataille de San Sebastian / Available at Amazon.com / Street Date June 15, 2021 / 21.99
Starring: Anthony Quinn, Anjanette Comer, Charles Bronson, Sam Jaffe, Silvia Pinal, Jorge Martínez de Hoyos, Jaime Fernández, Rosa Furman, Leon Askin, Ivan Desny, Pedro Armendáriz Jr.,...
Guns for San Sebastian
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1968 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 111 min. / La bataille de San Sebastian / Available at Amazon.com / Street Date June 15, 2021 / 21.99
Starring: Anthony Quinn, Anjanette Comer, Charles Bronson, Sam Jaffe, Silvia Pinal, Jorge Martínez de Hoyos, Jaime Fernández, Rosa Furman, Leon Askin, Ivan Desny, Pedro Armendáriz Jr.,...
- 6/22/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Luis Buñuel's most direct film about revolutionary politics brandishes few if any surreal touches in its clash between French star Gérard Philipe and the Mexican legend María Félix. Borrowing the climax of the opera Tosca, it's an intelligent study of how not to effect change in a corrupt political regime. La fièvre monte à El Pao Region A+B Blu-ray + Pal DVD Pathé (Fr) 1959 / B&W / 1:37 flat (should be 1:66 widescreen) / 96 min. / Los Ambiciosos; "Fever Mounts at El Pao" / Street Date December 4, 2013 / available at Amazon France / Eur 26,27 Starring Gérard Philipe, María Félix, Jean Servais, M.A. Soler, Raúl Dantés, Domingo Soler, Víctor Junco, Roberto Cañedo, Enrique Lucero, Pilar Pellicer, David Reynoso, Andrés Soler. Cinematography Gabriel Figueroa Assistant Director Juan Luis Buñuel Original Music Paul Misraki Written by Luis Buñuel, Luis Alcoriza, Charles Dorat, Louis Sapin from a novel by Henri Castillou Produced by Jacques Bar, Óscar Dancigers, Gregorio Walerstein...
- 5/21/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Gian Maria Volonté has a big part in this prime quality Italo crime thriller blessed with a great score by Ennio Morricone. But the movie belongs to Robert Hoffman as the real-life public enemy who earned the alias 'The Machine Gun Soloist.' Director Carlo Lizzani's realistic treatment glamorizes nothing and implicates the police in shady policies as well. Award-winning co-star Lisa Gastoni is the woman who loves Hoffman, and is tempted to betray him. Wake Up and Kill Blu-ray + DVD Arrow Video (UK) 1966 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 124 98 min / Svegliati e uccidi; Lutring; Wake Up and Die / Street Date November 24, 2015 / 29.95 Starring Robert Hoffmann, Lisa Gastoni, Gian Maria Volonté, Claudio Camaso, Renato Niccolai, Ottavio Fanfani, Pupo De Luca, Corrado Olmi. Cinematography Armando Nannuzzi Film Editing Franco Fraticelli Original Music Ennio Morricone Written by Ugo Pirro, Carlo Lizzani Produced by Jacques Bar, Joseph Fryd, Carlo Lizzani Directed by Carlo Lizzani
Reviewed by...
Reviewed by...
- 12/12/2015
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Google turns up nothing. The Wikipedia page has been deleted. The "IMDb" page included in the mail out is actually a very clever knock off. And the chances of Richard Matheson, Rod Serling and Kurt Vonnegut ever having worked on a script together are pretty much nil. Looks and smells like a hoax to me, but damn, it's a good one, the sort that appears to have professional backing, so clearly there's something else going on here. Check the press release below and chime in on your thoughts on what this could really be ...
Get Your Dirty Hands Off Me is a 1975 epic Thriller science fiction film directed by Tom Gries loosely based on the Story 'Dark Races' (Weird Tales, Dec 1932) by Robert E. Howard . The film stars Perry King and features Karen Black, Frank Langella, John Saxon,... The script was originally written by Richard Matheson and Charles Williams about...
Get Your Dirty Hands Off Me is a 1975 epic Thriller science fiction film directed by Tom Gries loosely based on the Story 'Dark Races' (Weird Tales, Dec 1932) by Robert E. Howard . The film stars Perry King and features Karen Black, Frank Langella, John Saxon,... The script was originally written by Richard Matheson and Charles Williams about...
- 4/27/2010
- Screen Anarchy
French producer Jacques Bar has died. He was 87. The producer of more than 80 films passed away in Paris last month. No further details of his death are known as WENN goes to press.
Bar founded Cite Films in 1947, produced his first movie, La Maternelle, in 1949, and went on to become one of the most revered talents in French cinema.
His most famous French-language films include My Father, The Hero starring Gerard Depardieu, Henry Verneuil's Any Number Can Win and Rene Clement's Joy House.
He also oversaw seven of legendary French actor Jean Gabin's 'late period' movies, which were claimed to be the best of his career.
Most recently, Bar produced Depardieu's 1999 TV mini-series The Count of Monte Cristo, and director Stephen Soderbergh's segment of 2004's Eros.
Bar founded Cite Films in 1947, produced his first movie, La Maternelle, in 1949, and went on to become one of the most revered talents in French cinema.
His most famous French-language films include My Father, The Hero starring Gerard Depardieu, Henry Verneuil's Any Number Can Win and Rene Clement's Joy House.
He also oversaw seven of legendary French actor Jean Gabin's 'late period' movies, which were claimed to be the best of his career.
Most recently, Bar produced Depardieu's 1999 TV mini-series The Count of Monte Cristo, and director Stephen Soderbergh's segment of 2004's Eros.
- 2/3/2009
- WENN
Screened at the Toronto International Film Festival
TORONTO -- Only one of the three episodes of the anthology film Eros delivers on the title's promise. Three world-class directors -- Wong Kar-wai, Steven Soderbergh and the seemingly ageless master himself, Michelangelo Antonioni -- take a crack at making a short film about eroticism and desire. That and the title should create considerable excitement in art houses for Warner Independent Pictures. But the disappointment caused by two-thirds of the film may cut into the boxoffice.
The first and most successful short belongs to Wong. The Hand, the story of a Hong Kong tailor's (Chang Chen) longtime obsession with a beautiful prostitute (Gong Li) for whom he crafts many fine garments, is like the writer-director's recent features -- a moody and intimate story told in close shots in almost claustrophobic rooms.
Eroticism hangs heavily in the air, and the two actors ably convey the passage of years and ebb and flow of a life where a certain kind of love can never be requited.
Soderbergh's Equilibrium is an amusing sketch set in a psychiatrist's office in 1955 between a shrink (Alan Arkin) and a very anxious patient (Robert Downey Jr.). All but the patient's recurring dream is shot in stylish black-and-white.
The dream itself does feature flashes of female nudity, but any short that revolves around the invention of the snooze alarm clock cannot consider itself erotic. Equilibrium is clever but emotionally flat.
For many cineastes the world over, the great Italian director Antonioni can do no wrong. So this free-form series of images revolving around a quarreling married couple and their individual encounters with a free-spirited woman may trigger all sorts of suggestions and provocations. Indeed, they will have to because on the surface, the short suffers from emotional and cinematic banality.
A couple (Christopher Buchholz and Regina Nemni) bicker in stilted, poorly delivered dialogue. They visit a restaurant, and he spots a young woman (Luisa Ranieri). When they angrily separate, the husband pursues the girl and makes love to her. Some time later, in early winter, the estranged wife goes to the beach, takes off her clothes and then encounters the same girl, who is also naked. Who takes their clothes off at the beach in wintertime?
Technical credits vary, but for the most part are top-notch.
EROS
Warner Independent
Roissy Films/Block 2 Pictures/Jet Tone Films Production/IpsoFacto/Solaris/Cite Films Productions/Fandango/Delux
Credits:
Directors: Wong Kar-wai, Steven Soderbergh, Michelangelo Antonioni
Writers: Wong Kar-wai, Steven Soderbergh, Tonino Guerra
Producers: Jacky Pang Yee Wah, Gregory Jacobs, Stephane Tchal Gadjieff, Raphael Berdujgo, Jacques Bar, Domenico Procacci
Executive producers: Chang Ye Cheng, Danielle Rosencranz
Directors of photoghraphy: Christopher Doyle, Peter Andrews, Marco Pontecorvo
Production designer: William Chang, Philip Messina, Stefano Luci
Costumes: William Chang
Milena Canonero Carin Berger,
Music: Peer Rabin
Enrica Antonioni, Vinicio MalaniOnly
Editors: William Chang Suk Ping, Mary Ann Bernard, Claudio di Mauro.
Cast: Miss Hua: Gong Li
Zhang: Chang Chen
Nick: Robert Downey Jr.
Dr. Pearl: Alan Arkin
Christopher: Christopher Bucholtz
Cloe: Regina Nemni
Luisa Ranieri
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 104 minutes...
TORONTO -- Only one of the three episodes of the anthology film Eros delivers on the title's promise. Three world-class directors -- Wong Kar-wai, Steven Soderbergh and the seemingly ageless master himself, Michelangelo Antonioni -- take a crack at making a short film about eroticism and desire. That and the title should create considerable excitement in art houses for Warner Independent Pictures. But the disappointment caused by two-thirds of the film may cut into the boxoffice.
The first and most successful short belongs to Wong. The Hand, the story of a Hong Kong tailor's (Chang Chen) longtime obsession with a beautiful prostitute (Gong Li) for whom he crafts many fine garments, is like the writer-director's recent features -- a moody and intimate story told in close shots in almost claustrophobic rooms.
Eroticism hangs heavily in the air, and the two actors ably convey the passage of years and ebb and flow of a life where a certain kind of love can never be requited.
Soderbergh's Equilibrium is an amusing sketch set in a psychiatrist's office in 1955 between a shrink (Alan Arkin) and a very anxious patient (Robert Downey Jr.). All but the patient's recurring dream is shot in stylish black-and-white.
The dream itself does feature flashes of female nudity, but any short that revolves around the invention of the snooze alarm clock cannot consider itself erotic. Equilibrium is clever but emotionally flat.
For many cineastes the world over, the great Italian director Antonioni can do no wrong. So this free-form series of images revolving around a quarreling married couple and their individual encounters with a free-spirited woman may trigger all sorts of suggestions and provocations. Indeed, they will have to because on the surface, the short suffers from emotional and cinematic banality.
A couple (Christopher Buchholz and Regina Nemni) bicker in stilted, poorly delivered dialogue. They visit a restaurant, and he spots a young woman (Luisa Ranieri). When they angrily separate, the husband pursues the girl and makes love to her. Some time later, in early winter, the estranged wife goes to the beach, takes off her clothes and then encounters the same girl, who is also naked. Who takes their clothes off at the beach in wintertime?
Technical credits vary, but for the most part are top-notch.
EROS
Warner Independent
Roissy Films/Block 2 Pictures/Jet Tone Films Production/IpsoFacto/Solaris/Cite Films Productions/Fandango/Delux
Credits:
Directors: Wong Kar-wai, Steven Soderbergh, Michelangelo Antonioni
Writers: Wong Kar-wai, Steven Soderbergh, Tonino Guerra
Producers: Jacky Pang Yee Wah, Gregory Jacobs, Stephane Tchal Gadjieff, Raphael Berdujgo, Jacques Bar, Domenico Procacci
Executive producers: Chang Ye Cheng, Danielle Rosencranz
Directors of photoghraphy: Christopher Doyle, Peter Andrews, Marco Pontecorvo
Production designer: William Chang, Philip Messina, Stefano Luci
Costumes: William Chang
Milena Canonero Carin Berger,
Music: Peer Rabin
Enrica Antonioni, Vinicio MalaniOnly
Editors: William Chang Suk Ping, Mary Ann Bernard, Claudio di Mauro.
Cast: Miss Hua: Gong Li
Zhang: Chang Chen
Nick: Robert Downey Jr.
Dr. Pearl: Alan Arkin
Christopher: Christopher Bucholtz
Cloe: Regina Nemni
Luisa Ranieri
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 104 minutes...
- 9/16/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Gerard Depardieu replays his role from the 1991 French film ''Mon Pere, Ce Heros'' in Touchstone's Yank version, ''My Father, the Hero, '' and proves again that he is one transportable talent.
Sunny, sweet and swift, director Steve Miner's take on the father-and-daughter-on-the-loose comedy should bounce around with modest success at the boxoffice. Longtime Depardieu fans may long for more grown-up romance in the family-safe scenario, but young co-star Katherine Heigl makes the most of a star-forming opportunity and should cause more than a few male adolescent hearts to skip a beat.
Francis Veber and Charlie Peters' screenplay wastes no time in sending divorced Parisian Andre (Depardieu) on a Caribbean vacation with his New York daughter, Nicole (Heigl), who feels she is neglected and on the verge of losing forever the father she both loves and, for superficial reasons, dislikes.
Bored, impatient, wiser in some ways than her 14 years, Nicole is ripe for her first real romance and finds the opportunity in the lobby of the vacation resort.
Local beach-hunk Ben Dalton James) is an honorable charmer, and Nicole, adrift in unknown territory, concocts an increasingly bizarre set of lies to make herself more desirable and grown-up. The primary fibs, that she's 16 and Andre is the lover that saved her from a dead-end life on the streets, fuel all kinds of embarrassing situations for father and daughter with locals and other guests.
The filmmakers show remarkable restraint with the secondary characters and overall tone of the film. While not always believable -- Andre's waterskiing experience is uncomfortably dangerous looking -- the usual padding of secondary plots is minimal, kept mainly to Andre's flirting with a friendly female (Faith Prince) on the prowl.
An uncredited, last-minute appearance by an Oscar-winning English actress helps wrap things up nicely after father comes around and helps daughter out of the hole she's dug herself. Depardieu's Cyrano Deja Vu in one scene is particularly charming, with Heigl gamely holding her own.
Handsomely mounted and peppered with breezy tunes, ''My Father, the Hero'' is as pleasant and over quickly as a hassle-free trip to the beach.
MY FATHER, THE HERO
Touchstone Pictures
Cite Films/Film Par Film/D.D. Prods. in association with the Edward S. Feldman Co.
A Steve Miner Film
Director Steve Miner
Producers Jacques Bar, Jean-Louis Livi
Screenplay Francis Veber, Charlie Peters
Based on ''Mon Pere, Ce Heros'' by Gerard Lauzier
Executive producer Edward S. Feldman
Director of photography Daryn Okada
Production designer Christopher Nowak
Editor Marshall Harvey
Music David Newman
Costume designer Vicki Sanchez
Casting Dianne Crittenden
Color/stereo
Cast:
Andre Gerard Depardieu
Nicole Katherine Heigl
Ben Dalton James
Megan Lauren Hutton
Diana Faith Prince
Mike Stephen Tobolowsky
Running time -- 90 minutes
MPAA rating: PG
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
Sunny, sweet and swift, director Steve Miner's take on the father-and-daughter-on-the-loose comedy should bounce around with modest success at the boxoffice. Longtime Depardieu fans may long for more grown-up romance in the family-safe scenario, but young co-star Katherine Heigl makes the most of a star-forming opportunity and should cause more than a few male adolescent hearts to skip a beat.
Francis Veber and Charlie Peters' screenplay wastes no time in sending divorced Parisian Andre (Depardieu) on a Caribbean vacation with his New York daughter, Nicole (Heigl), who feels she is neglected and on the verge of losing forever the father she both loves and, for superficial reasons, dislikes.
Bored, impatient, wiser in some ways than her 14 years, Nicole is ripe for her first real romance and finds the opportunity in the lobby of the vacation resort.
Local beach-hunk Ben Dalton James) is an honorable charmer, and Nicole, adrift in unknown territory, concocts an increasingly bizarre set of lies to make herself more desirable and grown-up. The primary fibs, that she's 16 and Andre is the lover that saved her from a dead-end life on the streets, fuel all kinds of embarrassing situations for father and daughter with locals and other guests.
The filmmakers show remarkable restraint with the secondary characters and overall tone of the film. While not always believable -- Andre's waterskiing experience is uncomfortably dangerous looking -- the usual padding of secondary plots is minimal, kept mainly to Andre's flirting with a friendly female (Faith Prince) on the prowl.
An uncredited, last-minute appearance by an Oscar-winning English actress helps wrap things up nicely after father comes around and helps daughter out of the hole she's dug herself. Depardieu's Cyrano Deja Vu in one scene is particularly charming, with Heigl gamely holding her own.
Handsomely mounted and peppered with breezy tunes, ''My Father, the Hero'' is as pleasant and over quickly as a hassle-free trip to the beach.
MY FATHER, THE HERO
Touchstone Pictures
Cite Films/Film Par Film/D.D. Prods. in association with the Edward S. Feldman Co.
A Steve Miner Film
Director Steve Miner
Producers Jacques Bar, Jean-Louis Livi
Screenplay Francis Veber, Charlie Peters
Based on ''Mon Pere, Ce Heros'' by Gerard Lauzier
Executive producer Edward S. Feldman
Director of photography Daryn Okada
Production designer Christopher Nowak
Editor Marshall Harvey
Music David Newman
Costume designer Vicki Sanchez
Casting Dianne Crittenden
Color/stereo
Cast:
Andre Gerard Depardieu
Nicole Katherine Heigl
Ben Dalton James
Megan Lauren Hutton
Diana Faith Prince
Mike Stephen Tobolowsky
Running time -- 90 minutes
MPAA rating: PG
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
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