Édouard Molinaro

The 35-year-old ministry official Baron Leisenbohg had the stage career ten years ago as the cast of the “Queen of the Night”, opera that promoted singer Klare Hell. Klare shows no gratitude however.Read More »

The film consists of four sex comedies – each are approximately thirty minutes in length – from four different countries.

1 – An Englishman’s Home.
A coarse, sex-obsessed chauffeur named Harry (Roger Moore) takes advantage when the real lord of the manor is away on a weekend business trip by presenting himself as his lordship. He picks up Donna (Priscilla Barnes), a beautiful air hostess from America, and takes her to the castle for a passionate weekend, but the ruse is jeopardised when one of the real lord’s lady friends unexpectedly comes to visit.Read More »

When lawyer Marc Delmas learns that his wife Jeanne has invited her new lover Antoine to move in with her, his reaction is to hire a call girl, Samantha Page. To his surprise, Samantha is intelligent and sensitive, as well as beautiful, and he immediately falls in love with her. His relationship with Jeanne well and truly over, Marc starts an affair with Samantha, and the couple live an idyllic life alongside Jeanne and Antoine. Things suddenly go wrong for everyone when one of Samantha’s ex-boyfriends turns up unexpectedly… @filmsdefranceRead More »

This quirky French film examines a series of events during the German occupation of France and shows what might have happened if one thing had gone differently in each instance. The first story given this treatment concerns the assassination of a German officer by a young member of the Resistance.Read More »

Quote:
Here is a lavish and charming film about a decade in the life of the multi-talented eighteenth century playwright and political activist. Under the guiding hand of director Edouard Molinaro, Fabrice Luchini gives a polished, witty, and mesmerizing performance as this French patron saint of freedom. Throughout his turbulent life, Pierre-Augustin Caron Beaumarchais swung back and forth between the pinnacles of success and the ignominy of imprisonment. His classic plays, The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro, were politically critical of the ruling class and corruption in high places. They both landed him in jail. But the resilient Beaumarchais found a new avenue for his creativity as a secret agent in England. There he got involved with an American who persuaded him to run arms for the American colonies. Beaumarchais, The Scoundrel is a convincing parable about the intoxicating enchantments and the spiritual firepower of freedom.Read More »

A satire about the French small businessman: A naive, middle-aged and paternal managing director (Mondy), subject to takeover by a wily American conglomerate, becomes besotted with Darc, supposedly the PR man’s niece but actually a callgirl hired as an inducement for the night.Read More »

Synopsis :
Charles Beaulieu, who served as an Army officer during the Algerian War, has become a novelist. Unfortunately for a playboy who lives in a big way like him, his books sell poorly. His need for money makes him accept an offer by Major Rhome, his former superior in Algeria, now one of the heads of the French counter-espionage agency. Charles’ mission will consist in preventing the defection of laser specialist Henri Banck’s defection to Red China…
—Guy BellingerRead More »

Synopsis:
Arsène Baudu and Hyacinthe, a pair of small-time crooks, fall prey to Alexandre Larsan-Bellac, who involves them (against their will) in high profile swindling. But their success is quite limited. For starters they are deceived by Mrs. Paterson, a charming widow. Later on, Ribeiro, a Portuguese contractor and former victim of the two crooks, traces them and forces them to work on one of his building sites as damages. Just then, Larsan-Bellac resurfaces with plans to lure Ribeiro once again…Read More »

Nora Sayre, New York Times wrote:
Building apprehension in an audience requires a particular skill; quite often, we need to be nervous about the combination of personalities and their sudden responses to one another, their capacity for violence of craziness, in order to give a hoot about who gets chased or shot.

Edouard Molinaro’s “The Hostages,” playing today and tomorrow at the First Avenue Screening Room, is an unusually intelligent action picture, partly because it stresses how dangerous a self-destructive persons can be.The movie is based on a recent case in France. A drifter with a fearfully short fuse falls in and out of prison; between assaults and armed robberies, he marries a call girl and the hold-ups continue until they’re arrested.Read More »