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Five films, all directed by Bernard Borderie and starring Michele Mercier & Robert Hossein:

ANGELIQUE
ANGELIQUE: ROAD TO VERSAILLES
ANGELIQUE AND THE KING
UNTAMABLE ANGELIQUE
ANGELIQUE AND THE SULTAN

Released on April 29 and not getting much attention. What ARE these things? I'd never heard of them or their director. French popular cinema, obviously, but are they any fun?

What in the world... Who is minding the store over at Lionsgate?

It might be hopelessly unhip in a sense, but I'm not going to complain about any '60s foreign film release that gets the aspect ratio & audio right (which appeared to be the case from my quick scan of the case; it looked like English subtitles and an English dub were included for each film).

It's getting to be fun watching Lionsgate running laps around Eclipse with all these little boxes.

The various on-line sites selling this set give the impression that only English dubs are provided. No mention of the original French soundtracks. Lionsgate's own website is no help in clearing this confusion up.

Judging from the gushing reviews on Amazon (US and UK) and IMDB, this series certainly has its fans. They sound like good time junk historical stuff, if the reviews are anything to go by.

Beaver

The French audio is there, along with English dubs -- but amusingly, the menus are only in French. I like to imagine someone slamming the remote against the armrest and screaming "'Scènes'?!?!? What the hell is 'Scènes' supposed to mean??!!"

And "How many bodices are you wearing?" may well be the Most Perfect Line Ever.

Finally, a box set made for the facial gash fetish crowd.

Angry crowds of raincoat-clad males were heard to say upon exiting the theatre, "Those weren't the slits we paid to see!"

Probly a buncha horny rastas looking for Ari-up..

Remarkably, my Costco had this (along with the Lionsgate Sophia Loren set) for $26, for anyone interested.

Actually, this looks like fun. Can anyone here comment who has seen them?

Jean-Luc Garbo wrote:Actually, this looks like fun. Can anyone here comment who has seen them?

They're pretty entertaining, if you enjoy old mainstream schlock movies (I do). I zipped through the whole set over a long holiday weekend. The first two or three are best, especially with the lush French location shooting and period costumes. The plots are fairly ridiculous, but diverting. The last two, which take place at sea and in a sultan's harem and the desert, are a bit more dreary and don't give Angelique much to do besides be a victim.

Foulard wrote:

Jean-Luc Garbo wrote:Actually, this looks like fun. Can anyone here comment who has seen them?

They're pretty entertaining, if you enjoy old mainstream schlock movies (I do). I zipped through the whole set over a long holiday weekend. The first two or three are best, especially with the lush French location shooting and period costumes. The plots are fairly ridiculous, but diverting. The last two, which take place at sea and in a sultan's harem and the desert, are a bit more dreary and don't give Angelique much to do besides be a victim.

I thought they'd be like that so this is good news! I surely hope that a desert and a harem aren't that boring, but I'll give these a try. I'm jonesing for a fix and I've been needing a schlocky French film to scratch it. By the way, the facial gash crowd a la Ballard's Crash is probably not going to have much time for these films if Ballad protags are what they usually are.

The Fanciful Norwegian wrote:The French audio is there, along with English dubs -- but amusingly, the menus are only in French. I like to imagine someone slamming the remote against the armrest and screaming "'Scènes'?!?!? What the hell is 'Scènes' supposed to mean??!!"

Or maybe, "All I want to do is get back to watching the movie, but I all I see is an option for 'Le Film,' WTF is that?!"