Lemmy pour les dames (1962) Directed by Bernard Borderie
Crime / Thriller
aka: Ladies' Man
Film Review
The ever-resourceful Lemmy Caution returns for yet another testosterone-surge outing,
charming pretty ladies and punching nasty men, just like they used to do in those halcyon
days of B-movie mediocrity. The plot is the same unimaginative fodder that followers
of the Lemmy Caution series would by this stage have become inured to; it is indeed hard
to comprehend exactly why the series once had such a mass appeal to French cinema audiences.
At least the whodunit element adds a modicum of suspense and some of the scattergun comedy
helps to relieve the monotony of the slow-paced plot.
After nearly a decade on the big screen, Lemmy Caution has clearly entered the
self-parody phase which inevitably hits secret agents in late middle-age (look what happened
to poor 007 after Sean Connery handed in his PK99). Indeed, from the film's
first five minutes you might be forgiven for thinking its writers had gone mad and opted
for an out-and out farce instead of the usual B-movie pastiche (although this might have
made a better film…).
Despite having played Lemmy Caution for nearly ten
years Eddy Constantine shows no sign of tiring of the part he has made his own.
Oozing charm by the bucket load, Constantine's iconic, and slightly camp, portrayal
of the world's most unflappable secret agent is a delicious (but hardly subtle)
piece of parody.
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Next Bernard Borderie film: À toi de faire... mignonne (1963)
Film Synopsis
Pursued by autograph hunters at every turn, the world's most famous FBI agent,
Lemmy Caution, soon regrets taking a holiday on the French Riviera. The holiday
is soon over when a strange Italian woman is murdered shortly after soliciting help
from Caution. The redoubtable FBI agent confronts the dead woman's three female
fiends, each of whom is married to a powerful politician or industrialist. It transpires
that someone has been blackmailing the four women in order to extort state secrets.
But who, and for what motive?
Script: Bernard Borderie, Marc-Gilbert Sauvajon, Peter Cheyney (novel)
Cinematographer: Armand Thirard
Music: Paul Misraki
Cast: Eddie Constantine (Lemmy Caution),
Françoise Brion (Marie-Christine),
Claudine Coster (Françoise),
Eliane D'Almeida (Sophie),
Yvonne Monlaur (Claudia),
Jacques Berthier (Docteur Nollet),
Robert Berri (Dombie),
Guy Delorme (Mirko),
Lionel Roc (Hugo),
Paul Mercey (Commissaire Boumègue),
Jacques Hilling (Le directeur de l'hôtel),
Henri Cogan (Réglege des Bagarres),
Carita (Perraque),
Don Carlos,
Anne-Marie Dance,
Annie Valentin,
Jean-Marc Allègre
Country: France
Language: French
Support: Black and White
Runtime: 97 min
Aka:Ladies' Man
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