88% (2) The Earrings of Madame De... 105 min, Not Rated, [Drama, Romance] [Max Ophüls] [19 Jul 1954]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 80%, Rotten Tomatoes: 97%, External Reviews
Actors: Charles Boyer, Danielle Darrieux, Jean Debucourt, Vittorio De Sica
Writer: Louise de Vilmorin (novel), Marcel Achard (screenplay), Max Ophüls (screenplay), Annette Wademant, Marcel Achard (dialogue)
External Links: Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: French, Turkish Country: France, Italy
Plot: In the Paris of the late 19th century, Louise, wife of a general, sells the earrings her husband gave her as a wedding gift: she needs money to cover her debts. The general secretly buys the earrings again and gives them to his mistress, Lola, leaving to go to Constantinople. Where an Italian diplomat, Baron Donati, buys them. Back to Paris, Donati meets Louise... So now Louise discovers love and becomes much less frivolous.
Rotten Tomatoes: Max Ophüls' masterpiece stars Danielle Darrieux as the titular Madame Louise de..., who in the film's opening scenes is forced to discreetly sell a pair of earrings, a gift from her military officer husband Andre (Charles Boyer), in order to make good on her debts. After she claims the earrings to be lost, the story of their possible theft hits the newspapers, prompting the jeweler who bought them (Jean Debucourt) to secretly sell them back to Andre, who then gives him to his mistress Lola (Lia Di Leo) as she prepares to leave for a holiday in Constantinople. There, the earrings again change hands as Lola pawns them to cover her gambling losses. They are then purchased by Donati, an Italian diplomat (Vittorio de Sica) on his way to France to meet with Andre. Of course, the earrings soon find their way back to Louise. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi
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87% (2) The Fall of the House of Usher 63 min, Not Rated, [Horror] [Jean Epstein] [05 Oct 1928]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 74%, Rotten Tomatoes: 100%, External Reviews
Actors: Charles Lamy, Fournez-Goffard, Jean Debucourt, Marguerite Gance
Writer: Edgar Allan Poe (short story), Luis Buñuel (adaptation), Jean Epstein
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: French Country: France
Plot: Allan has a hard time finding the Usher's house, which is known to be cursed... But he is a personal friend of Roderick Usher, who lives with his sick wife Madeline and a doctor. Roderick is painting a portrait of Madeline, but every pose exhausts her. Allan worries more and more...
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73% (1) The Crucible 145 min, [Drama, History] [Raymond Rouleau] [26 Apr 1957]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 73%, External Reviews
Awards: Won 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 2 wins & 2 nominations.
Actors: Alfred Adam, Jean Debucourt, Simone Signoret, Yves Montand
Writer: Arthur Miller (play), Jean-Paul Sartre (adaptation)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: French Country: France, East Germany
Plot: Salem, 1692. Industrious farmer, John Proctor, has twice made love to 17-year-old Abigail, a youth he and his wife have taken in. (His wife Elisabeth has rebuffed him for seven months; she is puritanical and cold.) When she finds John and Abigail embracing, she sends the lass from her home and John, feeling damned, agrees. Abigail vows revenge. Her chance comes when she accuses Elisabeth of witchcraft and manipulates younger girls to support her claims of seeing spirits. The town's minister and politicians want a cause: ridding the town of witchcraft is the ideal repression. John too, is accused; Abigail offers him a way to avoid hanging. Elisabeth has her own confession.
Rotten Tomatoes: American playwright Arthur Miller was still under an "unfriendly" cloud in 1958, so far as the anti-Communist brigades were concerned. Thus, the film version of Miller's stage play +The Crucible was lensed in France. Drawing several parallels to the McCarthy era, Miller dramatizes the Salem Witch Trials of the late 17th century, when hearsay, rumor, and mass hysteria passed for hard evidence. Given an opportunity to escape being hanged for witchcraft, John Proctor (Yves Montand) refuses to bow to the demands of the so-called justices. Many observers felt that this climactic scene was an act of contrition for Arthur Miller, who was (by his reasoning) not nearly so courageous when grilled by the HUAC. Also known as The Witches of Salem, The Crucible was adapted for the screen by Jean-Paul Sartre.
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72% (1) Devil in the Flesh 122 min, [Romance, Drama] [Claude Autant-Lara] [09 May 1949]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 72%, External Reviews
Awards: 2 wins & 2 nominations.
Actors: Denise Grey, Gérard Philipe, Jean Debucourt, Micheline Presle
Writer: Raymond Radiguet (novel), Jean Aurenche, Pierre Bost
External Links: IMDb Language: French Country: France
Plot: During World War I, underage student Francois Jaubert meets and falls in love with Marthe Grangier, who is engaged to Jacques, a soldier at the Front. Though Francois pursues her ardently, they become separated and she marries Jacques. But when Marthe and Francois meet again, their mutual feelings prove stronger than ever, and they begin an extramarital affair...regardless of potentially tragic consequences.
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71% (1) Monsieur Vincent 111 min, Not Rated, [Biography, Drama, History] [Maurice Cloche] [20 Dec 1948]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 71%, External Reviews
Awards: Nominated for 1 Golden Globe. Another 2 wins & 3 nominations.
Actors: Aimé Clariond, Jean Debucourt, Lise Delamare, Pierre Fresnay
Writer: Jean Bernard-Luc (screenplay), Jean Anouilh (screenplay), Jean Anouilh (dialogue)
External Links: Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: French Country: France
Plot: St. Vincent de Paul struggles to bring about peace and harmony among the peasant and the nobles in the midst of the Black Death in Europe, carrying on his charitable work in the face of all obstacles.
Rotten Tomatoes: Pierre Fresnay stars as St. Vincent De Paul in this reverent but realistic French biopic. The film traces "Monsieur Vincent's" progress from his days of forced servitude in Algiers to his entry into the priesthood, culminating with his Herculean efforts on behalf of the ill and destitute in early 17th-century France. Featured in the huge cast are Aime Clairimond as Cardinal de Richelieu and Germaine Dermoz as Queen Anne of Austria. Made under the most trying of conditions over a two-year period, Monsieur Vincent remains the chef d'ouevre of director Maurice Cloche. The film won France's Grand Prix award in 1947, and the following year was honored with Hollywood's "best foreign picture" Oscar.
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68% (1) The Eagle with Two Heads 93 min, [Drama] [Jean Cocteau] [18 Dec 1948]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 68%, External Reviews
Awards: 2 nominations.
Actors: Edwige Feuillère, Jean Debucourt, Jean Marais, Silvia Monfort
Writer: Jean Cocteau
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: French Country: France
Plot: Political intrigue and psychological drama run parallel. The queen is in seclusion, veiling her face for the ten years since her husband's assassination, longing to join him in death. Stanislas, a poet whose pen name is Azrael, is a suicidal anarchist, his imagination haunted into hate by longing for this queen who's drawn apart. He enters her private quarters intent on killing her then himself, but they fall in love, in part because he looks like the king. Stanislas wants her to regain political power by appearing to the public, and she tries to convince him to find hope and escape. All the while, the queen's enemies plot to keep the lovers together but to thwart their plans.
Rotten Tomatoes: Pauline Kael has characterized Jean Cocteau's The Eagle with Two Heads (L'aigle a deux tetes) as an inversion of Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast (1946). On surface, this is true: In Beauty, the heroine awakens the handsome, good man lurking within the beast, while in Eagle it is the woman who is aroused from her spell by the hero. The woman is a queen (Edwidge Feuillere) who is despised by the populace; the man is a poet (Cocteau regular Jean Marais), who has come to assassinate her. By breaking the evil influence holding her, the poet (who looks just like the queen's late husband) restores the queen to her innate goodness, and the two fall in love. Cocteau adapted The Eagle with Two Heads from his own stage play, which would later be staged on videotape by Michelangelo Antonioni as Il Mistero di Oberwald (1980). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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