La Tulipe noire

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.

In this first ¨Tulipe Noire¨ starred by Alain Delon took a chance and jumped from Film Noir , action genre to costumed comedy-adventures ; he steals the show as a masked hero relishing his secret identity on his horse called Voltaire and in cape and wielding sword ; executing bounds and leaps , twists and climbs and throughly enjoys himself . In 1789, at the beginning of French Revolution , an outlaw named "Black Tulip" held the surroundings of a town called Roussillon in fear . The inimitable Alain Delon in a double role as Julien De Saint Preux/Guillaume De Saint Preux, as he dons a black outfit and becomes the Black Tulip , the legendary masked , hero of oppressed who declares himself a revolutioner . Black Tulip riding in the hoof-prints, enjoys his hidden activity in black cape and wielding blade and helps the good people who are mistreated ,thwarting the ambitious plans of the meanie official , as the poor people respect him like a new Robin Hood . When he contends Baron Mouche (Adolfo Marsillach) , he was wounded , but then appears his twin brother . Meanwhile , he falls in love with gorgeous Caroline (Virna Lisi) . He battles against Marquis of Vigogne (Akim Tamiroff) , baron La Mouche and Prince of Grasillach (Robert Manuel) . Black Tulip's helped by a servant named Brignon (Jose Jaspe) and unites forces to Plantin (Francis Blanche), his beautiful daughter and revolutionaries .

Derring-do , feats, adventures, humor and action find this agreeable swashbuckler . Alain Delon runs and jumps, bounds and leaps all over the images and Adolfo Marsillach overacting outrageously when plays the villain Baron . Black Tulip-Delon splendidly fights evildoers and greed oppressors , while saving his brother an the damsel in distress . Delon made the character of Zorro his own and quickly established himself as a French legend ; starring years later , a similar film titled ¨Zorro¨ by Duccio Tessari . Delon is terrific as the Black Tulip , well accompanied by ideal heroine , a pretty Virna Lisi . Nice cast keeps the picture moving at a rapid clip , special mention for Adolfo Marsillach as a grumpy and bungler baron in a sensationalistic and exaggerated performance . Being a French-Spanish co-production appears several secondary actors seen in usual genres of the 60s as Jose Jaspe , Alvaro De Luna, Jorge Rigaud , Enrique Avila , Perla Cristal and Laura Valenzuela , wife of film producer , Jose Luis Dibildos . The film is set during French Revolution , though was filmed in Spain, Sevilla Films, Madrid, (studio) and Trujillo, Cáceres, Extremadura ; displaying a colorful cinematography by Henry Decae . Lively and jolly musical score with rousing leitmotif by Gerard Calvi .

The motion picture was well-mounted and fast paced by Christian Jacque, an expert on adventures and historic genre as proved in ¨Fanfan¨, ¨Lady Hamilton¨ , ¨Madame Sans Gene¨ , ¨Madame Du Barry¨ , ¨Lucrece Borgia¨, among others . Ratinh : 6,5 . Worthwhile watching .

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.

....,even when he's not at his best are always better than the rest.Although it's a swashbuckler,an action-packed story ,it's the kind of movie which loses much of its strength when watched dubbed .Released at the end of the swashbucklers era ,whose hero was most of the time Jean Marais ,"la tulipe noire" is more tongue in cheek,more picaresque,more libertine,closer to "Tom Jones " than "le bossu" or "le miracle des loups" .Christian-Jacques and Henri Jeanson wanted to match the scale and quality (and commercial success and critical acclaim) of their earlier and better "Fanfan la tulipe" (1951).In both works ,they take liberties with history and it's much fun:in "la tulipe noire" the characters know a priori that the 14th of July will be an important date ,they talk about revolution before the storming of the Bastille;and in the last pictures ,they say people will remember the 19th (!) of July.The villain (the evil prince who comes with his army to kill all the Parisians) about to be executed by the rebels says "I will remember my death all my life".

Alain Delon plays two parts ,twins ,and he's well cast as the dazzling heroes ,even if Jeanson deflates them a bit.Henri Decae' s cinematography is as splendid as ever.However the plot is sometimes confused and Philippe De Broca's "Cartouche" starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and released at the same time,is more rewarding .

NB:it has nothing to do with Alexandre Dumas's novel,which took place in Holland where the hero was trying to create a ...black tulip.

I would advise you to try this, despite the respect I have for another's reviewer opinion. I don't know if my viewing of an original, French spoken version on the big screen may have lost in incredibly funny innuendo, great colours, beautiful cinematography - if they are reduced to a poor VHS copy, possibly carelessly dubbed into a foreign language.

At least the acting by Alain Delon, and his equal, Virna Lisi, are still outstanding, as the continuous, imaginative action scenes. The two principals prove to be fine swords, against each other, and a number of enemies, and police rascals.

The Black Tulip is a Zorro type avenger, but a character more rich than its American counterpart. Without giving the plot away, I may add that American viewers will be both thrilled, and surprised, how a French action films' director is able to mix comedy, and drama so well.

Besides getting one of the film's DVD editions, people should be aware that a copy of the French version exists (possibly uncut) at the Alliance Française Médiathèque, a French cultural institution, and that they allow people to see the film there, and even borrow it! Ask for conditions at mediatheque@alliance-francaise.or.th and ask for their film PAL #161... Ah, next time I'll go to France!...