Philippe de Broca Archives

Viper in the Fist

1920. Jean Rezeau and his elder brother were living happily in their family estate in Brittany, until the death of their grandmother. The return of their mother, a worthy descendant of fairytales' witches, brings an all new atmosphere to their home.

NR

6.6

2004 Drama 100 min Play

6.8

On Guard

France, 17th century, during the reign of Louis XIII. When a dear friend, the Duke of Nevers, is treacherously assassinated by a powerful relative, a skilled swordsman, the noble Henri de Lagardère, seeks his rightful vengeance as he tries to protect the innocent life of the duke's last heir.

NR

6.8

1997 Adventure 128 min Play

5

1001 Nights

Sheherazade has been married to a ruler who wants many wives, but only one at a time. Consequently, as soon as he has bedded them, he has them put to death. In most retellings, the girl staves off this unfortunate conclusion by putting off the connubial event for a thousand and one nights, telling irresistible stories instead. In this one, she gets hold of a magic lamp.

NR

5

1990 Adventure 98 min Play

5.8

Chouans!

Directed by Philippe de Broca, the film recounts a bloody episode of the French Revolution. 1793, the Terror . In Vendée and in Bretagne, the chouans are revolting against the young Republic and fight for the monarchy restauration. The civil war divides also the family of the Count Savinien de Kerfadec, a liberal and generous noble and a flying machines inventor.

NR

5.8

1988 Drama 145 min Play

6.2

The African

Charlotte (Catherine Deneuve) flies to East-Africa in order to build a touristic center near the Lake Williams where the pygmys live. Here she meets her husband Victor (Philippe Noiret), a devoted conservationist who left her three years ago to live in the jungle. Can you imagine his enthusiasm when she arrives at the conclusion that the ideal place to built this holiday resort is his kitchen garden?

NR

6.2

1983 Adventure 101 min Play

6.2

Jupiter’s Thigh

Antoine, a professor of Greek, and Lise, a police inspector, honeymoon in Greece. There they meet a young couple, Charles, an archaeologist, and Agnes, a dishy flirt. Charles unearths the lovely buttocks of a classical statue and is determined to donate it to the Louvre. Agnes wants to sell it and gets a handsome local sailor to take it for an appraisal. When the sailor is murdered, the police suspect Charles and arrest Antoine as his accomplice. Lise swings into action, but before she can ...

NR

6.2

1980 Comedy 100 min Play

6.2

The Skirt Chaser

A discontented concert pianist causes all sorts of heartbreak with his egotistical and womanizing antics, and all the people in his life attempt to force him to grow up in this French comedy/drama.

NR

6.2

1979 Comedy 104 min Play

5.9

Dear Inspector

When Lise's car bumps Antoine's bike, they recognize each other from a brief fling 20 years before while at the Sorbonne. He's now a professor of Greek; she's loathe to tell him she's a police inspector. A call interrupts their first dinner date: a Deputy of the National Assembly has been murdered. She has a suspect, another Deputy, and must track him while deflecting Antoine's eye from her vocation. All roads in the inquiry lead to Christine Vallier, the dead Deputy's mistress, a beguiling ...

NR

5.9

1977 Comedy 105 min Play

6.3

Incorrigible

Victor Vautier is incorrigible: he's in constant motion, working several cons at once, using different names and changing disguises. He's charming and outrageous, incapable of uttering a sentence that isn't embellished or an outright lie. His life goal is to make enough money to build a sea wall to protect Mont-Saint-Michel. Charlotte, a parole officer, shows up: she's young and seems taken in by Victor. He discovers she lives above the Senlus Museum, where her parents are the curators. ...

NR

6.3

1975 Comedy 100 min Play

7.1

The Magnificent One

A writer of pulp fiction imagines himself as the dashing hero and his English neighbor as his love interest. Released in English as The Man From Acapulco.

NR

7.1

1973 Action 95 min Play

6

The Devil by the Tail

In this comedy, a run-down hotel drums up customers by sabotaging passing cars. The stuck motorists are then obliged to stay. Unfortunately, one of the sabotaged cars belongs to a bank robber. The hotel staff wants the robber out, but they also want to keep his ill-gotten money.

NR

6

1969 Comedy 90 min Play

5.4

The Oldest Profession

A collection of sketches on prostitution through the ages. 1) "The Prehistoric Era": A caveman discovers that a cavewoman is more attractive when cave paint is applied to her face. And she can earn more seashells that way. 2) "Roman Nights": The Emperor goes out seeking a little nocturnal amusement, only to find that the high-priced, Oriental courtesan he hires is his wife, the Empress. 3) "Mademoiselle Mimi": In revolutionary France, Mimi finds that her client, the nephew of a marquis, is ...

NR

5.4

1967 Comedy 119 min Play

7.4

King of Hearts

An ornithologist mistaken for an explosives expert is sent alone into a small French town during WWI to investigate a garbled report from the resistance about a bomb which the departing Germans have set to blow up a weapons cache.

NR

7.4

1966 Comedy 102 min Play

7.4

Up to His Ears

Up the Himalayas... Up the Yang-tze... Up in a balloon... Up-stage with a stripper... Up-town in Hong Kong... You can't keep a great adventurer down

NR

7.4

1965 Adventure 104 min Play

5

Male Companion

A dedicated layabout (Jean-Pierre Cassel) bounces from relationship to relationship, moving on only when the prospect of employment presents itself.

NR

5

1964 Comedy 92 min Play

7.6

That Man from Rio

French military man Adrien Dufourquet gets an eight-day furlough to visit his fiancée, Agnès. But when he arrives in Paris, he learns that her late father's partner, museum curator Professor Catalan, has just been kidnapped by a group of Amazon tribesmen who have also stolen a priceless statue from the museum. Adrien and Agnès pursue the kidnappers to Brazil, where they learn that the statue is the key to a hidden Amazon treasure.

NR

7.6

1964 Action 112 min Play

5.5

People in Luck

A light French comedy of 5 segments.

NR

5.5

1963 Comedy 95 min Play

6.4

Swords of Blood

In the 18th century, Louis de Bourguignon is working with the Malichot's gang, but their ways are too 'unethical' for him. He creates his own band, acting under the name of Cartouche, making audacious robberies of the rich people, and even distributing the takings with the poor. Thus, cartouche attracts the people's sympathies, Venus's love, and hate from the Police and Malichot... Cartouche can escape all the traps they set at him - except the entrapments of love. Eventually, he will be ...

NR

6.4

1962 Action 114 min Play

6.6

Five Day Lover

American actress Jean Seberg, stars as Claire, a wayward wife, in this sex comedy by director Philippe de Broca. Claire's husband is not especially exciting -- he is a button-down civil servant -- and so it is not unusual that she lapse into an affair with Antoine (Jean-Pierre Cassel). There is a serious problem with her choice of a lover, because Antoine happens to be the live-in, "significant other" of Claire's best friend Madeleine (Micheline Presle), a fashion designer. Claire's tangled ...

NR

6.6

1961 Comedy 95 min Play

5

The Joker

A young man who lives on women meets his match in the young wife of a rich industrialist. Their affair is doomed by her taste for luxury and his dislike of her coolness.

NR

5

1961 Comedy 88 min Play