reviewId int64 363k 588k | userId int64 33.9k 15.9M | itemId int64 1 1.42M | rating float64 1 10 | title stringlengths 1 10.9k ⌀ | content stringlengths 81 11.6k ⌀ |
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409,651 | 2,567,136 | 434,969 | 8 | Hamlet For Beginners | ' Adorable ' is a word that should be used sparingly and almost certainly reserved for Audrey Hepburn - there's an outside chance that the Other Audrey , Tautao , may grow into it in time - and the last person I would have considered applying it to would be Manu Devos but better make that WOULD have thought , past tens... |
409,576 | 2,567,136 | 458,352 | 8 | Satan In Stiletto Heels | There's a lot to like in this film not least the gloriously anti-PC stance ; in a world where employers live in fear of firing a female employee who is clearly nine and a half months pregnant it's refreshing to see an employer who thinks nothing of TELLING rather than asking her Assistant to obtain a copy of the new UN... |
409,432 | 2,567,136 | 104,025 | 8 | Between Laroque And A Hard Place | Combining comedy with social comment requires surefootedness and Coline Serrau proves that she is more than equal to the task in this entry from the early nineties . She was building on the success of her mega hit which translates as Three Men and A Cradle but her initial follow up Romuald et Juliet largely failed to f... |
408,992 | 2,567,136 | 25,316 | 8 | Vested Interest | It's easy to see why this film appealed to international audiences on its initial release because in the very heart of the Great Depression it provided charm , sophistication , romance , laughter and at the same time gave a reminder of tears in such throwaway scenes as a young mother fainting from hunger and the couple... |
410,177 | 2,567,136 | 478,724 | 8 | Scent Of A Woman | Alain Chabat is a fine actor , writer and director but maybe a trifle misguided to take an ' idea ' credit for a story that probably had them rolling in the aisles when Aristophanes was still learning that it's ' i ' before ' e ' except after ' c ' . But , like I said , Chabat is a fine actor and he can do charm when h... |
409,937 | 2,567,136 | 274,155 | 8 | How Ya Gonna Get ' Em Out Of The House After They've Seen The World | I suspect this is more of a grey comedy masquerading as Black . Given that's it's about a relative - in this case a son - who's a pain in the ass it's tempting to see it as another angle on the same director's ' Tatie Danielle ' where an aunt and not a son was the cause of friction but that would be to superficialize .... |
410,097 | 2,567,136 | 44,977 | 8 | We Are All The Richer For Having This Film | It's not beyond the bounds of credibility that Ken Loach genuflects to Andre Cayatte morning noon and night because Cayatte was baring his bleeding heart when Loach was still squirreling his deep hatred of England in his subconscious awaiting release via a non-stop string of celluloid attacks on the terrible country wh... |
409,843 | 2,567,136 | 192,293 | 8 | Time Was | It's quite possible that The Locket ( 1948 ) wouldn't have been made in the way it was - flashbacks within flashbacks - if Albert Valentin had not pioneered the technique five years earlier . Even if you're French and / or fluent in the language it's still something of a minefield but the skill is breathtaking and the ... |
409,539 | 2,567,136 | 486,474 | 8 | My Defenses Are Down | One of the plus factors about this excellent thriller is that unless you happen to live there you wouldn't know you were in Paris ; a few years ago there was an equally fine thriller , A La Petite Semaine which was shot largely in Porte de Clignacourt , North Paris whilst this one was shot mainly a few miles West in La... |
409,787 | 2,567,136 | 397,692 | 8 | Building Up To An Awful Let-Down . . . | . . . to paraphrase the lyric Johnny Mercer wrote to Fred Astaire's music way back when . This features the delectable Carole Bouquet as a lawyer with two adolescents and no husband on her hands . What she is happy to treat as a one-night stand backfires when the guy in question falls in love with her and decides to mo... |
410,142 | 2,567,136 | 58,331 | 8 | Good Golly , Miss Brolly | Everyone with even a minor interest in film has probably seen this at one time or another if only on television - as I had . I've just had a chance to watch it on DVD and I have to say that it does hold up pretty well . I haven't read the books but apparently they were a series of unrelated episodes rather than straigh... |
408,806 | 2,567,136 | 194,201 | 8 | Don't Take It As Gospel | The Champo - a small cinema du quartier in Paris - is to be applauded for staging this major retrospective of Sacha Guitry ; since January of this year they've been screening one Guitry title twice a day from a pool of twenty five which means they've now screened all of them at least twice . Most of the time it's diffi... |
409,623 | 2,567,136 | 37,973 | 8 | Fiddlers Two | On paper this looks promising ; a beautiful actress , Edwige Feuilliere , an actor who's just come off a starring role opposite Arletty in Les Enfants du paradis , a respected director , Jean Delannoy and one of THE four best scriptwriters in French cinema , Charles Spaak . Sometimes it all goes wrong but always with a... |
408,729 | 2,567,136 | 64,106 | 8 | Cold Cuts | I have to say I find it difficult to join in the chorus of ' masterpiece ' preceding this comment but that is not to dismiss it out of hand . I merely wonder it is possible to have a thriller without thrills . It's clear from murder # 1 who the killer is and there's not even an attempt at a red herring but by the same ... |
409,755 | 2,567,136 | 144,201 | 8 | Bridging Lone ( r ) | I saw this when it was released some five or six years ago and found it only so-so perhaps due to my aversion to Vanessa Paradis , a Goldie Hawn clone who seems to be under the misconception that acting is all about looking helpless and ' cute ' and standing back as all the men within a hundred mile radius roll over an... |
410,066 | 2,567,136 | 45,034 | 8 | The Pleasure's All Ours | Max Ophuls is rightly regarded as a major filmmaker and this is a major work . If you'd heard of his fluid camera-work but hadn't seen a film bearing his signature this film would illustrate perfectly what people mean by his fluid camera-work . In 1952 the portmanteau film was hardly new ; in England we had seen both Q... |
408,836 | 2,567,136 | 401,997 | 8 | The Red And The Black | When Stendhal coined the title The Red and The Black he used red for the military and black for the church but in this sense red can also mean Communism , the Communism espoused by devout Catholic Hansenn who , as we now know is the greatest traitor in American history . In the way in which it eschews sensationalism an... |
409,164 | 2,567,136 | 40,090 | 8 | Death In Venice | As dysfunctional families go the Maglias should but of course if they did there would be no story . Jacques Prevert hit another one out of the park with this right-on-the-money take of Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers but it wouldn't be Prevert if there was no spin on it and here he has two non-actors assigned to stan... |
409,791 | 2,567,136 | 428,430 | 8 | Shell Game | What a joy to see Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi actually Laughing - to say nothing of throwing in the odd song and dance - her way through a movie for a change . I guess she's so adept at playing downtrodden losers that she just keeps getting that kind of work and even when she wrote , directed and starred in Il est plus faci... |
410,194 | 2,567,136 | 103,994 | 8 | The Whole Enchilada | I can only add my voice to the others here who have praised this as a beautiful , passionate and moving film . In England at least we tend to have a stereotypical view of Mexico as a land of hovels and poverty and the film rightly disabuses us of that concept , portraying a land of elegance and refinement even as - iro... |
410,266 | 2,567,136 | 995,829 | 8 | Boy Meets Girl - In Spades | I heard a lot of good things about this movie so I decided to give it a whirl though I can't claim to be a fan of Argentinean cinema nor too wild about ' controversial ' subjects but in spite of an appalling soundtrack - and I caught it in a top-of-the-line multiplex - its ultimate sensitivity won me over . Apparently ... |
409,543 | 2,567,136 | 34,093 | 8 | Two A Brest | Films like this were the bread and butter of French Cinema in the first two decades of Sound and this one boasts a glorious roster from Gremillon himself to Andre Cayette , an uncredited Charles Spaak and , of course , arguably the Greatest of them all , Jacques Prevert . In a film in which the sea is a major character... |
408,864 | 2,567,136 | 377,752 | 8 | Postcards From The Edge | By coincidence this film has just opened in London on the same day as A Very Long Engagement . Both films have in common a search and / or longing for a loved one but one was made for a stick of gum and one for several millions . In terms of story this is plot number # 5a and in modern times we can trace it back to The... |
409,949 | 2,567,136 | 38,116 | 8 | Still In A Fair State | Rodgers and Hammerstein were nothing if not shrewd and though they have often been spoken of as innovators they were not averse from ' borrowing ' from other sources . In 1944 , one year BEFORE State Fair , MGM released ' Meet Me In St Louis ' a wonderful ' family ' oriented movie which starts by introducing the cast a... |
409,423 | 2,567,136 | 486,636 | 8 | Dream Girl | Erich Emmanuel Schmitt is best known for adapting other people's work for both stage and screen rather than for Original Screenplays so an Original for his directorial debut is something of a rarity . As it happens I saw one of his most recent adaptations on the Paris stage when he took Noel Cowards ' Private Lives ' a... |
408,883 | 2,567,136 | 90,206 | 8 | When The Bough Breaks | Shortly after its initial release this became - in terms of viewing figures - the most popular French film after Le Grande Vadrouille and it's not too difficult to see why . There's something for everyone to write his or her 2 , 500 words about in this story of three male chauvinists getting in touch with not so much t... |
409,820 | 2,567,136 | 354,448 | 8 | That Versatile Woman Balasko | Anyone seeing this film and unaware of Balasko's 50 plus previous films , 18 of which she wrote including the six she wrote and directed would probably find it hard to believe that she is best known as a comedienne . Helmer Guillaume Nicloux appears to have a penchant for persuading ex-members of l'equipe Splendid to a... |
409,484 | 2,567,136 | 34,241 | 8 | Snow Job | This movie was released at the tail-end of the Big-Band era when it was par for the course for ' name ' bands to go ' on the road ' playing to packed houses in venues all across the US . This meant that fans got to know the members of the band by sight and so would have had no difficulty in recognizing more than half t... |
410,079 | 2,567,136 | 201,615 | 8 | Five Guys Named Schmo | Anyone watching this on DVD who admires French Cinema and has a special regard for 30s / 40s French cinema could be forgiven for hitting the ' Pause ' button at the end of the Opening credits just to savour the roll-call of names there from writer Yves Mirande through a roster of such stalwart actors as Andre Luguet , ... |
409,629 | 2,567,136 | 824,330 | 8 | Bonjour , Bonjour | This is a French movie about the Resistance so right away it's got to be a bad nowhere to Melville's L'Armee des ombres ; it's also about WOMEN in the resistance so now it's got to be a bad nowhere to Berri's Lucie Aubrac . So why bother . Glad you asked that . For one thing L'Armee des ombres was made in 1969 , forty ... |
408,784 | 2,567,136 | 25,164 | 8 | Co-Respondents Course | This was the first in the franchise of Fred and Ginger movies and the second to team them - following Flying Down To Rio in which they had supporting roles - and it's easy to understand the thinking behind it ; they'd scored heavily with The Carioca so why not build a movie around THEM and ANOTHER ' new ' dance . The o... |
409,962 | 2,567,136 | 74,916 | 8 | DeKlein And Fail | Losey's early Hollywood work included The Dividing Line and The Boy With Green Hair and Mr Klein contains elements of both inasmuch as he is still saying that if you're ' different ' you'll wind up paying the price . He seems to have taken a leaf out of Jean-Pierre Melville's book and shot the film in muted , autumnal ... |
409,178 | 2,567,136 | 48,673 | 8 | Do I Hear A Waltz | There are some plots that have a lot of mileage in them and will accommodate transition between media - think of the Isherwood novels Mr Norris Changes Trains that became the play I Am A Camera that became the musical Cabaret - and Arthur Laurents ' play The Time Of The Cuckoo is one of them becoming in turn this movie... |
409,773 | 2,567,136 | 364,301 | 8 | All The President's Mendacity | Of course it helps if you are French yourself or have 1 ) an interest in , 2 ) a knowledge of or 3 ) a passion for all things French but even without one , two or all three this is still a very fine film . As I write Michel Bouquet is three months shy of his eightieth birthday and despite being asked to portray a man w... |
409,288 | 2,567,136 | 46,794 | 8 | The Wheat From The Chaff | We're definitely on the fringe of ' classic ' country here . A screenplay by those two masters Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost adapting in turn a novel by Colette , direction by Claude Autant-Lara and in the lead role the legendary Edwige Feuillere , a combination just made to upset Francois Truffaut and needle him into ... |
410,039 | 2,567,136 | 333,766 | 8 | Silver Bells and Cockle Shells | This is one of those feelgood movies like , say ' Amelie ' that you see and find fresh and energetic and then go back to months later and wonder what you saw in it the first time . On the other hand it's only just been released and I've only seen it once so yes , I DID , find it fresh and energetic despite being a tad ... |
408,759 | 2,567,136 | 46,798 | 8 | Auclair de la lune | Henri Decoin and Danielle Darrieux made some wonderful movies together whilst they were married ( 1935 - 41 ) and Bonnes a tuer shows that divorce did nothing to destroy their peculiar magic . Top-billed Darrieux has only marginally the lion's share of screen time and for reasons best known to himself - or the Front Of... |
410,001 | 2,567,136 | 454,536 | 8 | Big Steel | Lucas Belvaux has contrived to make a fine film laced with social comment without resorting to the preachiness of Ken Loach primarily because , unlike Loach , Belvaux knows how to sugar the pill by first entertaining and then leaving the audience to spot any social comment . We are in Liege and the local steel mill has... |
409,110 | 2,567,136 | 402,141 | 8 | Reel Or Imaginary | This is yet another valentine to movies and the part they play in people's lives , at once referential and innovative . It does however require a certain suspension of disbelief - is it , for example , feasible that a caretaker would ( a ) be allowed to live in the museum full time and ( b ) have access to all the expe... |
409,606 | 2,567,136 | 29,453 | 8 | Gift Of The Gabin | With films of this vintage and this level of acclaim the trick is to watch them as they must have been seen at the time before they became either clichéd , imitated , parodied or all three , and in doing so attempt to spot / respond to what was seen as innovative but seems perhaps dated seventy years on . Apart from th... |
410,276 | 2,567,136 | 51,679 | 8 | Sugar Beat | Gabin became a star in the thirties , ' eloped ' to the US during the war then made something of a glorious comeback in the fifties and went on to do some outstanding ' lion in winter ' stuff such as Le Chat in which he gave as good as he got to another icon of French cinema Simone Signoret . Here he is cast as the mat... |
409,657 | 2,567,136 | 1,065,332 | 8 | Clinging In The Rain | Initially this third film from triple-threat Writer-Director-Actress Agnes Jaoui ( and the seventh she has co-written with Jean-Pierre Bacri ) seems reluctant to surrender its riches but two and a half to three reels in we're ready to roll over and play dead once again as the old team of Jaoui and Bacri deliver yet ano... |
408,911 | 2,567,136 | 42,949 | 8 | Twelve O'Clock High | Despite a long and active career , which included amongst other things supplying the off-screen ' voice ' of Lord Haw Haw in Twelve O'Clock High and creating the role of Socrates in the Broadway production of Maxwell Anderson's Barefoot In Athens , Barry Jones was relatively unknown to cinema-goers in 1950 which made h... |
409,889 | 2,567,136 | 33,870 | 8 | Bye , Bye , Blackbird | It's a real joy to see this on the big screen again in the correct aspect ratio as part of the Bogie season at the NFT . Apart from the occasional dated slang - ' gunsel ' for example , a word that was probably clumsy even at the time - the snappy dialogue holds up well and feels as though it may have been ahead of its... |
409,680 | 2,567,136 | 463,486 | 8 | Elf Hazard | There's a lovely tongue-in-cheek disclaimer at the beginning of this film to the effect that neither the events nor the characters depicted are based on real people or events , especially , nudge , nudge , wink , wink , the Elf scandal which rocked France lo , these few moons ago . No film of course should presuppose a... |
409,455 | 2,567,136 | 194,484 | 8 | Parrot Fashion | It's interesting to speculate whether Preston Sturges was familiar with this movie because a few years later he wrote and directed Christmas In July which , like Un Oiseau rare , is kick-started by a contest to find a new slogan , in this case for a lamp and in the Sturges movie for a coffee . Whether Sturges saw it or... |
408,733 | 2,567,136 | 64,323 | 8 | What I Did For Love | There are at least two ways of describing this entry : Early Chabrol and / or Vintage Chabrol . Depends on what you mean by love . Chronologically it dates from his early days as writer-director and if you are moved to describe those days as vintage then who am I to argue . Certainly it has Chabrol's signature all over... |
408,963 | 2,567,136 | 53,671 | 8 | Ev'ry Street's A Boulevard In Old Pigalle . . . | . . . and ev'ry hope's a dream . This is late Duvivier but fleeting glimpses of the style remain , like sepia snapshots seen under water , Duvivier has always depicted the richness of the milieu , the overlooked characters who people it unobtrusively like insects under stones . Jean-Pierre Melville beat him to it in th... |
408,744 | 2,567,136 | 461,770 | 8 | Twelve O'Clock High | Any movie that can quote King Kong and The Sound Of Music without stretching has to be doing something right . It's the ideal film for this time of year , a perfect blend of live action and animation welded together seamlessly and chock-full of references from Alice In Wonderland to Cinderella , The Sleeping Beauty , S... |
408,834 | 2,567,136 | 42,546 | 8 | Koster Brava | Henry Koster was a fine journeyman director who probably did little more on this film than keep out of the way of Jimmy Stewart and Josephine Hull and prevent the supporting cast from bumping into the furniture but for all that the finished product is something he can be proud of as can Mary Chase , who adapted her own... |
409,458 | 2,567,136 | 389,557 | 8 | Going Deutch | By definition all Resistance movies have things in common . Almost invariably there will be a set-piece in which the Resistance in question break into the local Nazi stronghold to rescue anything from one to half a dozen prisoners , then there'll be an account of the day-to-day life in an Occupied country , arrests , b... |
408,953 | 2,567,136 | 824,747 | 8 | Night-Tripping LAPDs | In Act I , Scene I , of Henry IV Part I the king , having just learned of Hotspur's latest triumph ( his army left 10 , 000 Scots dead and he took several important prisoners ) is reminded of his own son , Prince Hal , at this stage something of a wastrel ; the king expresses his dearest wish : ' Oh , that it could be ... |
409,747 | 2,567,136 | 20,656 | 8 | Shop Talk | Having recently watched Duvivier's 1925 ' Silent ' Poil de Carrotte I was more than prepared for the mastery on display here , some five years later . The very first shot of a train bringing Denise from the provinces is worthy of Renoir's La Bete Humaine and trains don't really figure in the story so this was merely Du... |
409,968 | 2,567,136 | 36,094 | 8 | Dixie Cups | If you're looking for authenticity , atmosphere and the stink of flop sweat then this is for you . Gypsy Rose Lee prevailed on room-mate Craig Rice to help whip her memoirs of burlesque into shape and throw in a murder or two for ballast and William A . Wellman does his usual pro job behind the camera . In 1943 there w... |
409,851 | 2,567,136 | 31,345 | 8 | Gleesome Threesome | To all intents and purposes this is a Claude Autant-Lara film , the Producer , Lehman , in a touch of the Irving Mills ' gave himself a director credit ( Irving Mills was a music publisher who used to ' cut himself in ' on songs written by Duke Ellington ) . Alas , they chose to utilise Parisian slang which today is no... |
409,383 | 2,567,136 | 40,407 | 8 | Easy Terms | Shown on television more or less 60 years after its initial release this holds up remarkably well in contrast to Brighton Rock made one year earlier with the same leading man and the other twin director brother at the helm . Perhaps it is because The Guinea Pig presents Britain in a positive rather than a negative ligh... |
409,356 | 2,567,136 | 179,161 | 8 | My Last Duchess . . . | . . . wasn't a patch on this one but neither was it the Browning version . Edwige Feuilliere in one of those fine French actresses difficult - at least in my case - to track down , though I did manage to acquire Le Ble en herbe , one of her finest accomplishments , and Mam'zelle Bonaparte - the one she made immediately... |
409,998 | 2,567,136 | 829,098 | 8 | Pop Song | It's a great pity that this marvellous film was released after Atonement because it blows it out of the water . Unlike Atonement which was above all a cynical exercise in Festival film making closely allied to multi-media hype And When Did You Last See Your Father is just about making a high quality film aimed at the A... |
409,032 | 2,567,136 | 33,804 | 8 | The Two Faces Of Eve | The one about the naive , unworldly guy falling for the fast-talking cynical gal who starts out by using him and winds up loving him is hardly new indeed Stanwyck herself played virtually the same role in Ball Of Fire whilst Gary Cooper , her ' victim ' in Fire did something similar in Mr Deeds Goes To Town where Jean ... |
410,009 | 2,567,136 | 473,308 | 8 | Humble Pie | It's difficult - though not impossible - to be critical of a film when you know going in that the writer / director was murdereed shortly before its release . Essentially this is the kind of film you're able to enjoy even whilst notching up its flaws . Essentially Adrienne Shelley's mantra is ' aren't men beasts ' and ... |
409,041 | 2,567,136 | 399,497 | 8 | O , Brother , Where WERE You | This is yet another charmer albeit offbeat from France . Young Sophie Quinton has lived virtually all her life in a convent where , with the exception of Miou-Miou all the nuns are of pensionable age . Avril ( Quinton ) is still a novice and the main thrust of the movie takes place outside the convent during a sort of ... |
409,786 | 2,567,136 | 411,118 | 8 | So Who IS In The Frame ? | Cryptic is as good a word as any to describe this . If red herrings are your thing then you've come to the right place . Jerome Salle takes a leaf out of Patrice Leconte's book and starts on a pair of feminine feet but unlike Sandrine Bonnaire in Leconte's movie , who wore granny shoes , these are stylish high heels . ... |
409,579 | 2,567,136 | 119,773 | 8 | Entertaining Monsieur Sloane | It's impossible - for me at least - to know whether or not Ann Fontaine was familiar with Joe Orton's sixties play Entertaining Mister Sloane ( subsequently filmed ) before writing and directing Nettoyage a sec some thirty years later but it is reasonable to assume that the central premise - bi-sexual catalyst male ent... |
409,277 | 2,567,136 | 855,895 | 8 | Twin Piques | Isabelle Huppert , who has A-list directors standing in line to work with her is celebrated for her willingness to help new writer-directors by lending her name to attract finance and her presence on set to attract audiences . This can , of course , prove embarrassing - Josie Balasko's first directorial effort Sac de N... |
410,000 | 2,567,136 | 465,538 | 8 | The Thinking Man's Jason Bourne | For whatever reason - maybe he needed to prove something , maybe he had little control over the Bournes - Tony Gilroy , who scripted all three of the Bourne movies , has made his directorial debut with a movie as complex as the Bournes but without the relentless violence that marred - for me at least - the trilogy . Pl... |
410,176 | 2,567,136 | 25,493 | 8 | A Great Taste Of The Lubitsch Touch | Lubitsch , Lehar and Larry ( Hart ) are an unbeatable parlay in this entry where the only jarring notes are those leaving the mouth of Jeannette McDonald and heading for the stratosphere pursued by a pack of Labradors . Enough people love the voices of McDonald , Kathryn Grayson , Jane Powell , etc to neutralize my ant... |
410,025 | 2,567,136 | 291,579 | 8 | A Rose By Any Other Name | It was probably wise of Audrey Tautou to shed - at least partly - her ' Amelie ' image as quickly as possible and stake her claim to be perceived as a more versatile actress . For a 26 year old directing her first full-length film Laetitia Colambani is very assured and it's doubtful if others in her position would plum... |
409,550 | 2,567,136 | 179,092 | 8 | A GREAT Pleasure Actually | Journeyman French director Marcel L'Herbier clearly had a penchant for the word ' bonheur ' and employed it in two of his many films . First time round it was Le Bonheur in 1934 and then , just over a decade later he shot this , Au Petit bonheur , the film that brought the luminescent vedette Danielle Darrieux back to ... |
409,355 | 2,567,136 | 1,064,932 | 8 | You Don't Have To Know The Language | I suppose it's lucky I enjoyed this film because if anything is critic-proof this is it . It has now racked up more admissions in France than any film except Titanic - it overhauled the previous French ( as opposed to Hollywood ) long-time leader La Grand Vadrouille a matter of days ago . France of course regularly thr... |
409,471 | 2,567,136 | 150,807 | 8 | Green Cards | The protagonist of Irwin Shaw's second and sadly neglected novel , The Troubled Air , is a liberal radio producer at the time of the McCarthy witch-hunts who draws flak from both the Right and Left because of his stance on the actors , writers and technicians he employs . In some ways Roger Richebe ' was similar ; a fi... |
410,227 | 2,567,136 | 140,074 | 8 | I Told You So | Any filmmaker who offered the public something entitled They'll Come To A Bad End would hardly expect to have them queuing down the Mile End Road but say it in French , Gibier de Potence and it's a different matter entirely . It's not easy to pigeon-hole this entry from Roger Richebe dating from 1951 . At one level it'... |
410,153 | 2,567,136 | 27,630 | 8 | Follow Fleet-Footed Fred | This was the second of three films that Irving Berlin wrote for the Astaire-Rogers franchise and it has by far the largest score and is somewhat unusual in that two of the numbers are performed by Harriet Hilliard leaving the rest to be divvied and / or shared between the principals . As usual the storyline needn't det... |
409,473 | 2,567,136 | 57,967 | 8 | Tourist Trap | Outstanding location shooting in two of Europe's most photogenic countries ( Italy and France ) , a comic ' caper ' plot with guns that don't really kill plus two of the greatest comedians in French cinema - Louis de Funes and Bourvil - has to be an unbeatable parlay and in fact the following year they did it again - o... |
408,878 | 2,567,136 | 44,602 | 8 | Slasher Movie | The nearest I ever came to seeing this was a clip shown at a Gerard Philippe exposition in Paris about two years ago . I had no interest in the remake and having just caught up with the original just over half a century after it was made I can only conclude that the inept fencing was intentional , aimed at a long obsol... |
409,073 | 2,567,136 | 48,919 | 8 | Blind Faith | Nigel Balchin was one of the finest English novelists of his generation and equally facile at screen writing and it was his name rather than that of veteran director Henry Hathaway and definitely not that of wooden actor Van Johnson that attracted me to this one . Once you get over the ridiculous mistakes which no one ... |
409,795 | 2,567,136 | 94,315 | 8 | Legends In The Fall | Definitely not one for the Multiplexes this has Art House written all over it and it's all the better for it . There's a definite Checkovian ' feel ' to this one , albeit minor Checkov , with five characters doing nothing much except give a Master Class in Screen Acting . If you actively look for such things you'll fin... |
409,427 | 2,567,136 | 488,565 | 8 | I Believe I Like This | This is yet another of those ' little ' films the French do so well and nobody else seems to do at all . It ' never going to set the world on fire and , to be fair , it never aspires to ; there are no ' showcase ' roles and nobody feels the need to chew the scenery , it's just a small , solid entertainment with the lea... |
409,862 | 2,567,136 | 38,355 | 8 | Perchance To Dream | Along with the original ( Dick Powell ) version of Farewell , My Lovely this initial adaptation of The Big Sleep is light years ahead of subsequent adaptations of Chandler novels - and it's highly debatable if the Michael Winner travesty of The Big Sleep should even be included in the set . Only those who have read and... |
410,084 | 2,567,136 | 269,329 | 8 | Net Gains | I find it both interesting and apposite that some of the reviews here invite comparison with the singular world of Patricia Highsmith . There is indeed at times the same air of unreality , amorality and lawbreakers leading charmed lives . The characters may perhaps best be described as separate strands of seaweed on th... |
409,929 | 2,567,136 | 479,143 | 8 | One More Time | Surprisingly for someone with a predilection for chamber / Art House movies especially French and especially NOT the Hollywood of recent years I found a lot to like here . Okay , the schmaltz is as high as a week-old steak pie but Stallone has gone to bat for the Over-The-Hill brigade and portrayed them as above all gu... |
410,100 | 2,567,136 | 48,947 | 8 | Wouldn't It Be Loverley . . . | . . . if out there somewhere was a real Fair Lady transformed by an assassin's bullet into an amnesiac and requiring only expert coaching by a Pygmalion / Professor Higgins to blossom into a long-lost Russian princess . By pure coincidence this movie was released the same year ( 1956 ) that My Fair Lady opened on Broad... |
409,792 | 2,567,136 | 445,570 | 8 | Fingers And Thumbs | With a couple of heavy hitters like Catherine Frot and Andre Dussollier you can cast them in anything and get a result . Even that most English of English crime writers Agatha Christie . A few years back Agnes Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri adapted Alan Ayckbourne successfully in Smoking / No Smoking thus arguably setting... |
409,052 | 2,567,136 | 84,865 | 8 | WHAT A Drag ! | Given the German origins of this film and the fact that the plot was right down his strasse I'm surprised that the great Billy Wilder never tackled a remake ; be that as it may , Victor Saville directed Jessie Matthews in the initial remake one year - 1934 - after the original was released and then Blake Edwards threw ... |
409,172 | 2,567,136 | 117,477 | 8 | Laugh Like A Drain | Leconte followed this with Une Chance sur deux as if to emphasise his versatility and mastery of all genres . On the one hand an ultra modern piece involving two over-the-hill iconic ' hard ' men taking on the highly organized Drug Barons with all the car chases , technology and explosions that go with that territory a... |
409,457 | 2,567,136 | 119,623 | 8 | Versailles In The Sunset | We've been here before , of course ; Versailles , Sun King , decadence versus squalor , etc but having said that this is a painless way to expand - if you're not French - your knowledge of the era in which Comedy Francaise was born . Though that isn't really touched on here two of the principal characters are Moliere a... |
409,766 | 2,567,136 | 75,215 | 8 | If I Had To Watch It Again . . . | . . . and probably find more ways in which French movies differ from those of Hollywood . In Hollywood the chocolate boxes are mostly empty and the actresses look like Bette Davis , Joan Crawford , Ann Bancroft etc . In France the actresses look like Michele Morgan , Micheline Presle , Edwige Feuillere , Danielle Darri... |
410,180 | 2,567,136 | 362,225 | 8 | KeepIt Under Your Hat . . . | ' ' ' but Tell No One is quite an effective policier . It was made more enjoyable for me when the likes of Nathalie Baye , Jean Rochefort and Brigitte Caitillon popped up seemingly out of the blue but playing slightly more than cameos . Francois Cluzot carries the bulk of the movie as the pediatrician whose childhood s... |
410,257 | 2,567,136 | 40,202 | 8 | Hold The Phone | After a weak opening in which a cop is shot by two would-be robbers in a speakeasy the action moves on eleven years and develops into a fine semi-documentary - a mini-genre that enjoyed a short vogue in the late forties . I do , however , have one cavil and it's this : We are told that the cop killing occurred in 1932 ... |
409,922 | 2,567,136 | 86,650 | 8 | Life Without Father | Sandrine Bonnaire has matured into one of the finest French actresses of her generation - and incidentally directed a fine documentary about her handicapped sister , Sabine - yet this is only early promise fulfilled as this movie illustrates . Just sixteen when it was shot Bonnaire exudes the confidence of someone twic... |
410,027 | 2,567,136 | 53,570 | 8 | Four For Taxes | This has to be something of an oddity - a ' Continetal ' film about four hookers with NO nudity and No sex . Quite a trick but Pietrangeli pulls it off with the help of a fine cast led by Simone Signoret - by now no stranger to the oldest profession having played hookers in Dedee Of Anvers and La Ronde - as the eponymo... |
409,812 | 2,567,136 | 35,885 | 8 | Pass The Portemanteau | Julien Duvivier was not only one of the best Directors who ever came out of France but also one of the most versatile being more than adept in several genres . Try telling that to Hollywood : Having prevailed upon him to remake his masterpiece Un Carnet de bal as Lydia they next got him to follow it with Tales Of Manha... |
408,898 | 2,567,136 | 40,221 | 8 | The Only Catch That Beat This . . . | . . . was the one made by Willie Mays for the Giants . Max Ophuls in his Hollywood period turned out some classy stuff and right after this he returned to France and gave us La Ronde . Given that the two male leads are Robert Ryan and James Mason we could be forgiven for anticipating a snarling contest but as it turns ... |
409,754 | 2,567,136 | 387,898 | 8 | Hide In Plain Sight | I've never much cared for this director who has always seemed bent on shocking and sickening his audiences into submission with every graphic image in the book but here he gets his effects much more . . . well perhaps subtly is the wrong word but certainly in a more subdued way so that when the graphics come they genui... |
409,006 | 2,567,136 | 1,024,896 | 8 | The Same Old Song And Dance | This is arguably the perfect film for this time of year . Boy Meets Girl , Boy Gets Girl . . . well , you know the sort of thing . Despite racking up about sixty films between them neither of the leads is really known outside France ; Jean-Paul Rouve had a small role - a postman - in A Very Long Engagement and in the f... |
409,970 | 2,567,136 | 24,772 | 8 | Kids Tough | William Wellman - especially in his early sound films - excelled in telling stories economically thus packing a great deal into 7 or 8 reels . Here he even squanders a whole reel plus in establishing the leading characters as what in England would be called middle class before pulling the rug out from under them via th... |
409,218 | 2,567,136 | 482,571 | 8 | Get Carter | Those who read and enjoyed the novel Carter The Great will be predisposed to enjoy the prestige . I hesitate to employ the phrase ' rip-off ' but no one writes in a vacuum and the similarities between the novel and the film are akin to those that would obtain at a convention of Siamese Twins . Both are ' period ' works... |
409,624 | 2,567,136 | 44,446 | 8 | The Sound And The Glory | It's a fact universally acknowledge that some writers work better with some directors than others and vice versa . Working separately director Marcel Carne made one great film ( Hotel du Nord ) , several decent films ( Therese Raquin , Julia ou le cle des songes ) and several ho-hum entries ; also working separately Ja... |
409,553 | 2,567,136 | 491,901 | 8 | Art Of Darkness | About the only thing I know about Armenia is that it gave the world William Saroyan , Ross Bagdavarian and Alvin And The Chipmunks . Now Marseilles born but , it turns out , Armeniian extracted Robert Guediguian has shot his latest movie there so that theoretically we get a chance to learn something about the place . E... |
409,557 | 2,567,136 | 38,492 | 8 | The Price Is Right | Trivia buffs may find it interesting or even ironic that this film is set in 1844 and stars Vincent Price who , though a fine all-round actor achieved perhaps his greatest fame in a series of film adaptations of the stories of Edgar Allan Poe made in the 1960s , stories that Poe was writing around the time that Dragonw... |
409,775 | 2,567,136 | 73,169 | 8 | The Only Hand That Can Beat This . . . | . . . is a misdeal . Chabrol does it again . This time the colours tend more toward rich oil than the pastel water he invariably favours but maybe the rich stew of the plot dictated the palette . The basic premise is a mixture of The Postman Always Rings Twice / Double Indemnity and / or any of the rip-offs in which a ... |
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