A Tulipa Negra

In 1789 France, a thief known as La Tulipe Noir, regaled in black, including a black mask and cape, is going through France robbing noblemen. This sounds like Zorro or Robin Hood, except that the sentence ends "stealing from noblemen." Nothing about helping the poor. La Tulipe Noir, in reality Count Guillaume de Saint Preux (Alain Delon) is interested only in getting money and enjoying his clandestine affair with Marquise Catherine de Vigogne, who is a married to Marquis de Vigogne (Akim Tamiroff).

The French somehow believe in La Tulipe as a revolutionary hero. But no one knows who he is. The Chief of Police Baron La Mouche (Adolfo Marsillach) believes Guillaume is La Tulipe and runs a sword down the man's cheek during an event, figuring when he's making his robbery rounds, he'll be easy to recognize.

Now unable to rob anyone, Guillaume sends for his younger lookalike brother, Julien (Alain Delon) to lure La Mouche. Julien is guileless and idealistic, not to mention romantic, so when he meets Caroline Plantin, (Verna Lisi) a revolutionary, he falls for her.

Julien soon learns that Guillaume is not interested in being a revolutionary so he takes on his La Tulipe persona to support the revolutionaries.

This story is loosely based on a Dumas novel - real loosely, from what I understand. I found it delightful and very tongue-in-cheek. It's not as good as the Mark of Zorro of Tyrone Power, which had humor but also exciting drama, but it was still fun. Delon himself would play Zorro about ten years after this.

Delon plays both brothers beautifully, Guillaume more macho and tough, Julien sweet and innocent. His acting can be controversial because of his staggering, almost impossible good looks and a charisma that wipes everybody else off the screen. And let's face it, it's usually men who find fault with him. If you've seen "Two Men in Town," "Mr. Klein," "Notre Histoire," and many others, he's an excellent actor, the winner of two Cesars, the French equivalent of the Oscars.

Akim Tamiroff and Adolfo Marsillach are fantastic in their roles, bringing a good deal of humor to them.

This was a non-dubbed version with subtitles - you will certainly be let down if you see it dubbed. Very good film.

Just for cape and sword adventure fans, "The Black Tulip" is the French version of Zorro. Very much alike. There's Alain Delon in the main role for the ladies and he is not bad. You'll also find Virna Lisi in one of her early works rendering an acceptable work too. But if it comes to acting, veteran Akim Tamiroff is the clear winner in a supporting role as a villain noble. Photography and shooting on location in real palaces and old European cities add to the movie and a sort of sticky tune helps too.

But what "The Black Tulip" really lacks is the sense of passion and real heroism American classics of the genre usually transmit, this being really odd since most of them are usually located in Europe including France. I think the director didn't make up his mind whether this would be a serious swashbuckler with a touch of humor or a comedy with a touch of serious adventure. So it didn't work neither way.

Nonetheless the film is entertaining and worth a watch.

French version of the Zorro legend set during the period just prior to the French Revolution plays like Zorro the Gay Blade at times. Its an amusing romp with Alain Delon in the heroic lead (Delon would take up the mantle of Zorro a decade later and sleep walk his way through the role). Its the typical stuff with the "bandit" hailed as hero while the ruling class hates his guts. Filled with funny remarks and great action this is a film to search out, or would be if there were any decent copies floating around. The only way it seems to see this is on really bad low budget videotapes, which is a shame since its better than most swashbuckling romps that have appeared over the years.

First of all, this film has nothing to do with Alexandre Dumas' great novel, which takes place entirely in Holland in the 17th century and mainly is about cultivating tulips, which was a craze in Holland at that time. In the novel they struggled with the challenge of bringing forth an entirely black tulip, which is botanically impossible. Here they present black tulips galore, as if they grew in thousands, like another signature of another scarlet pimpernel, which underscores the aburdity of the script of this film, which is practically all nonsense with great sequences of sword-fighting, colourful rides and excursions, great chases on horseback, plenty of romantic flirts and courting and a thronged mess of general fighting. The colours and cinematography is outstanding like the dazzling show-off of brilliant French theatre and diction, but the script is just awful, all characters being casually superficial and disturbingly cynical, with only Akim Tamiroff standing out as something of an original character, but you are never informed of why and how he was ultimately hanged. This is casual superficial entertainment in dashing colours and swashbuckling splendour but nothing else, with no realism and no link with reality at all. Pity, because Christian-Jacque made some of the most brilliant costume films of France, the greatest being perhaps "Fanfan la Tulipe" 1952 with Gerard Philippe and Gina Lollobrigida, which was much more ingenious and original.

this is the famous novel by Dumas la tulipe noir, not Zorro or whatever I have read in other reviews. I can recall many names in this film, extremely popular in our cinema, television and theater, like Adolfo Marsillach, as the Police Chief la Mouche, Alvaro de luna, before being a most celebrated bandit in Spanish television, José Luis Pellicena, glory of Spanish theater thorough decades, and many others. Very pretty actresses, you can't beat a famous Miss Italy, Virna Lisi, and on top of that, the most handsome and charming of all, Alain Delon, 28 year old by then, at the peak of his career to make this film version of revolution, adventure, romance, comedy and all the ingredients of the great Alexandre Dumas novel.