Max Ophuls' final film (and his only movie in color) is a cinematic tour-de-force masquerading as a biography, in this case a dazzling fictionalized life of the notorious 19th century dancer, actress, and courtesan. A still beautiful, but weary and disillusioned (and, as we later discover, ailing) Lola Montes (Martine Carol) is first seen as the ...
Love and the Frenchwoman (La Francaise et L'Amour) concentrates on the nature of love by illustrating seven separate aspects of the emotion. In "Childhood," 9-year old Pierre-Jean Vaillard suffers a traumatic experience when he takes his parents' "cabbage patch" theory of conception too literally. In "Adolescence," a little girl (Annie Sinigalla) ...
Director René Clair insisted that his 1952 production Beauties of the Night (Les Belles du Nuit) was intended as a comic variation on Griffith's multipart Intolerance (1916). The Clair film deals with a disillusioned music teacher (Gérard Philipe) who dreams of the beautiful women of history, envisioning himself as the central male figure in each ...
In what must be the longest lapse of time between a film and its sequel, 70-year-old Abel Gance continues his nearly legendary, 1927 historical drama Napoleon with this tale of Napoleon's life after his victories in Italy. The first half of Austerlitz delves into the private life of Napoleon Bonaparte (Pierre Mondy), the prodigal son of Corsica. ...
The most frequently filmed of Emile Zola's works, Nana was given a slick, polished cinemazation by French- filmmaker Christian-Jacque in 1955. Martine Carol is well (if predictably) cast in the title role, playing a poverty-stricken Parisian girl who rises to prominence as a high-priced whore. Nana is content to love 'em and leave 'em until she ...
Blonde French sex symbol Martine Carol is incongruously cast as the title character in Lucrece Borgia. The bloody excesses of the incestuous Borgia family during the Renaissance are given ample screen time, albeit within the bounds of reasonably good taste. Mexico's Pedro Armendariz struts and frets as the cruelly ambitious Cesar Borgia, who ...
Robert Rossellini's Vanina Vanini was released in many US markets as The Betrayer. Based on a Stendhal novel, the film is set in Italy during the turbulent years of the mid-19th century. Princess Vanini (Sandra Milo) confronts a strange looking woman in her palace. The woman turns out to be a man (Laurent Terzieff), an Italian revolutionary on the ...
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.