FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

blanche-2 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.

MARIO GAUCI A lesser-known literary creation of Alexandre Dumas Snr. was this Zorro-type masked avenger at the time of the French Revolution who, unlike the contemporaneous The Scarlet Pimpernel, was on the side of the Revolutionaries despite being truly an aristocrat himself! I've never read the source novel myself but, in any case, I'm familiar with the character via a fondly-remembered Japanese animated series that I used to watch on Italian TV as a kid (where the titular hero was actually a girl!). Having said that, it seems that much of the narrative has also been changed for this handsomely-mounted, energetic but disappointingly bland cinematic adaptation.Alain Delon – who, ironically, would go on to portray Zorro himself in an equally medium-grade Italian production in 1975 – plays a dual role here as the jaded aristocrat who dons the black costume and as his naïve, younger brother who is forced to keep up the ruse when the latter is facially scarred during a swordfight with his nemesis (Adolfo Marsillach). No self-respecting swashbuckling hero goes by without a gushing female pining for him and, appropriately enough, we get two here in Virna Lisi and Dawn Addams – one for each Delon persona! The fomer ditches her own imminent marriage when she meets cute with the shier Delon and the latter gets it on with the older Delon practically in front of her ageing aristocrat husband, Akim Tamiroff.

dbborroughs 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.

lorenellroy It is always a tad unfair to judge movies in a dubbed version especially ,as is the case here,when the dubbing is perfunctory and careless.Actors voices are among the key elements of their personality and replacing them with an anonymous voiceover artist is tantamount to a form of castration.,not to mention the loss of credibility arising from poor lip synchronization.The movie needs all the help it can get anyway being a pretty feeble affair.The Black Tulip is a Zorro like figure,with a penchant for black garb and mask who sides with the peasantry in the French Revolution by holding up aristocrats and disbursing the proceeds to the downtrodden-a reverse Scarlet Pimpernel,whose sentiments,rightly ,were pro establishment.When scarred on his face by the Police Lieutenant General he substitutes his identical twin,an idealist,who takes to the role with some relishCue romantic entanglements,some woeful sword fights and a plethora of bad dubbing until we get to the finale where heroism and self sacrifice rule the day Delon is dull and lacks the balletic grace that marks out the best screen swordsmenMinor in every way