Word: verneuil
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...these battles go, it is a good one. The French producer-director team of Jacques Bar and Henri Verneuil shot the film in Mexico, which enabled them to hire a horde of bloodthirsty Indians who really look like bloodthirsty Indians -spraying arrows in all directions and falling off their horses in a veritable Yaqui Armageddon. The villagers' faces are also a pleasure to watch: this is one movie in which the scene stealing is done by the extras. But it is strictly petty larceny...
That's the situation in "Monkey in Winter," a 1962 film having its "Boston premiere" at the Brattle this week. The plot's a natural; so is the film. On top of some solid, straightforward direction (by Henri Verneuil) and a lush background score, "Monkey in Winter" has the slickest combination of all--Gabin and Belmondo...
Thereafter, on a predictable split-second schedule, practically everything goes wrong. At the climax, Old Wave Director Henri Verneuil achieves a scene that is a gem of understatement. Plopped down at poolside like a bull walrus minus his tusks and a billion clams, Veteran Actor Gabin blinks goodbye to his ill-gotten gains, filling the moment with memorable stupefaction. Best side bets of Any Number Can Win are glimpses of the human flotsam and jetsam beached on the Riviera, but all in all it is a cinematic gamble that never quite pays...
Director Henri Verneuil has wisely let his laughs come naturally, and the tone is, in the phrase of the women's magazines, heartwarming. Only hopelessly carnivorous viewers will refuse to take the pledge with Fernandel when, reunited briefly with Marguerite at film's end, he tells her, "I will never eat beef again...