Merveilleuse Angélique

How is it possible that no one before wrote a review of this movie and that only 11 persons voted on it? Maybe the predominantly American audience of IMDb is not much aware of French movies. French ladies (and especially young ladies!) and gentlemen, give your comments! The honor of France is at stake. The movies of the "Angelique" series are the ULTIMATE SENTIMENTAL CLOAK AND DAGGER STORY! A whole generation of French (and not only French!!) teenagers has swooned over these movies. So much adventure, splendid 17th century costumes, romantic love, faith and treason, it is all there! Of course the events often transgress the limits of what is credible, but who cares? Just don't be ashamed of enjoying these movies! And, of course, Michèle Mercier is splendid as the incredibly seductive and courageous heroine "Angelique".

This was the first Angelique movie that I watched or attempted to watch, and it will be the last.

The description of this alleged heroin as an intelligent and strong willed with a purpose. But the scripting comes off as a airheaded blonde that falls for the first man who comes her way.

First it was the fake eye patch wearing Neanderthal, followed by the poor poet without a penny to his name. And all this white leaving her two young boys in harms way.

Weak plot, over acting from F movie has-beens and let's not even bring up the clownish fight choreography.

Angelique makes Emmanuelle softcore porn somewhat bearable.

Well, I'm from central Europe and the Angelique-films have been a part of the life of everyone here, since the very beginning. The Slovak TV shows it every year and I can't actually imagine not seeing it at least once a year :) It is a perfect mixture of simple, yet great story,love, drama, adventure and history at the same time. Besides, dazzling costumes and settings, beautiful music of Michel Magne and great acting of all the cast (especially Michele Mercier, Robert Hossein and Jean-Louis Trintignant are brilliant) make all of these films a great pleasure to watch. So, when you need to escape from the grey reality, get these films and fly away to a place where courage,bravery and above all love were the heart and soul of everybody's life. Maybe you'll find there what is missing a bit in the world today...

That's Angelique's route.The title of the Golon's novel was "le chemin de Versailles"(=Versailles route).And like the other movies of this famous -in France- saga,it does not do the book any justice.Once again,the Golons ' depictions were often first-class,mainly in the first chapters which dealt with the notorious "Cour des Miracles" (also depicted by Victor Hugo in "Notre-Dame de Paris" (The Hunchback of Notre-Dame)).Their work was cheapened and watered-down by the screenwriters ,giving a romantic flavor to Nicolas' character (who in the book is a crude brute),and avoiding many a "horrible" line.For instance ,the fighting in Saints-Innocents charnel house -where the Belles de Paris used to come during the day to do some shopping among the skulls and the bones-is nowhere to be seen on the screen.

This is fairly entertaining swashbucklers adventures,a genre that was at its (commercial) peak in France circa 1960 thanks to actor Jean Marais ("le bossu","le capitan" "le miracle des loups")but was on the wane after 1965."Angélique was,all in all,the last hurrah(so to speak).

The second part of the costume drama shows Angélique (Michèle Mercier) on a course for revenge. First she has the monk killed who had accused her former husband of sorcery. After some adventures with the bandits of Nicolas (Giuliano Gemma), she makes the acquaintance of a young poet (Jean-Louis Trintignant). Attempting to restore her former rank, the ex-countess becomes a successful business woman, introducing a trendy drink called chocolate to the public. But when she gets closer to the king, she finds out that the former conspirators against his majesty are still powerful. Her best defense might be a new marriage, but her intended husband is not willing to propose it...

I liked the sequel less than the first movie, because that one had developed the story carefully, while the sequel is a bit rushed and the characters seem to change spontaneously, whatever he script demands. Angélique falls in and out of love every day with a different guy, it seems, and her two children are treated a bit careless as well by the writers. Still good entertainment, though, because we get good action scenes with the bandits, funny moments for example with the captain of the guard, great actors anyway. I voted 8/6/7/6/6 for the 5 movies of the series.