Michel Galabru

Michel Galabru

Acting

October 27, 1922 — January 4, 2016
Safi, French Protectorate of Morocco [now Morocco]
228 movies

Biography

Michel Louis Edmond Galabru (27 October 1922 – 4 January 2016) was a French actor. Galabru appeared in more than 250 films and worked with directors such as Bertrand Blier, Costa-Gavras, Luc Besson (for Subway), and Jean-Luc Godard. He is also well known for his collaborations with Louis de Funès in Le gendarme de Saint-Tropez, Le gendarme se marie, Le gendarme et les extra-terrestres, Le gendarme en balade, Le gendarme à New York, Le gendarme et les gendarmettes, Le petit baigneur, L'avare, J...

🎬 Michel Galabru's Filmography

228 movies sorted by popularity

The Little Bather
6.6

Louis-Philippe Fourchaume, another typical lead-role for French comedy superstar Louis de Funès, is the dictatorial CEO of a French company which designs and produces sail yachts, and fires in yet another tantrum his designer André Castagnier, not realizing that man is his only chance to land a vital contract with the Italian magnate Marcello Cacciaperotti. So he has to find him at his extremely rural birthplace in 'la France profonde', which proves a torturous odyssey for the spoiled rich man; when he does get there his torment is far from over: the country bumpkin refuses to resume his slavish position now the shoe is on the other foot, so Fourchaume is dragged along in the boorish family life, and at times unable to control his temper, which may cost him more credit then he painstakingly builds up...

The Little Bather

1968
Cop or Hood
6.3

When the local police inspector was found dead in a prostitute's house, police division commissioner Stan Borowitz is sent to investigate the situation. Posing as the prostitute's long-lost brother "Antonio Cerruti," he discovers a mare's nest of police corruption. In fact, in this comedy thriller the whole town is corrupt. If they were closely examined, Stan's methods for pursuing this investigation might embarrass the police. For instance, he drives into a criminal's house in a fancy, expensive race car. In another incident, he callously blows up a casino owned by Musard , one of the town's crime bosses. On that occasion, he first forces Musard to remove his clothes, and the poor criminal watches his casino explode from across the square while standing naked in a phone booth. Meanwhile, Stan seduces the lovely Edmonde.

Cop or Hood

1979
The City of Silences
5.9

Creuzeville, a small provincial town with its woods, its countryside, its ramparts, its mass and its little Sunday cakes. A stranger arrives. He's a private investigator in Creuzeville, over which an old family of industrialists reigns, a murder has just been committed. The victim is the founding ancestor of this small empire that has outgrown one man. In Creuzeville, we hardly like foreigners, especially if they are vegetarians, perhaps homosexuals, undoubtedly anarchists like, precisely, this detective. However the detective by whom the scandal broke broke the silence of the city by going to the heart of family secrets hitherto well hidden behind purple shutters. The murders follow one another. We strike on the left - a young ecologist - as on the right - a cynical playboy. Continuing to dissect the mobiles and the characters, the detective dropped the masks one by one. And, little by little, fear and violence are settling in the small town.

The City of Silences

1979
The Maiden and the Wolves
6.2

Not long before World War I, in a French Alpine town near the Italian border, a pack of slaughtered wolves is delivered to local taxidermist Leon (Patrick Chesnais). A surviving black cub comes down from the mountains looking for his family, and is saved from discovery and certain death by Leon’s young daughter Angele, who releases him back into the wild. The Great War comes and goes, making local foundry owners the Garcins rich. Family patriarch Albert Garcin (Michel Galabru), who happens to be Angele’s godfather, has given a free lifetime’s lease of a shack in the hills to a gypsy woman (played in flashbacks by Elisa Tovati in which she’s seen, literally, having dances with wolves on stage). Her son Guiseppe (Stefano Accorsi), who appears to be slightly mentally handicapped, guards the wolves he’s befriended up there, especially the black pack leader he calls Carbone.

The Maiden and the Wolves

2008
La Folle Journée ou Le Mariage de Figaro
7.5

The Marriage of Figaro, an adaptation of Beaumarchais' play, depicts a veritable social and romantic battle on the day of Figaro and Susanna's wedding, as Count Almaviva attempts to seduce the young woman despite her impending marriage. Throughout this eventful day, servants and masters clash in a game of intrigue, disguises, letters, and misunderstandings, each trying to thwart the other's plans. Figaro, cunning and determined, refuses to be humiliated, while Susanna and the Countess join forces to foil the Count's intentions. Around them gravitate Cherubino, Basilio, Bartolo, Antonio, and Marcellina, who further complicate the plot by adding jealousies, misunderstandings, and unexpected twists. Little by little, the Count's manipulations are exposed, and the women play a decisive role in the denouement.

La Folle Journée ou Le Mariage de Figaro

1989
Henry Dunant: Red on the Cross
5.1

Henry Dunant, son of a Geneva francophone upper class bourgeoisie family, works for a Swiss exploitation company in French Algeria; when the colonists are thirsty, he returns determined to convince the firm and emperor Napoleon III to build a dam for them. After his Uncle, Dr. Hubert Dunant, diagnoses him not with Algerian typhus, just malaria, also his first meeting -dropping drawers in hospital for a shot- with nurse Cécile Thuillier, and meeting his careerist brother Daniel's fiancée, Léonie Bourg-Thibourg, daughter of the firm's boss, the board approves his plan. On his way to the emperor, who didn't even concede to receive him, Henry gets stuck in Castiglione, part of the Austrian province Lombardy which French troops came to 'liberate'; his Geneva friend Dr. Louis Appia saves his life by presenting him to suspicious Austrian troops as his medical assistant...

Henry Dunant: Red on the Cross

2007
San Antonio
3.7

While a terrorist epidemy strikes the world leaders, the commissaire San-Antonio and his partner, the lieutenant Bérurier, have to escort the French ambassador in a British hotel. But after a negligence of Bérurier (one more little sex affair...), San-Antonio witnessed, helpless, to the ambassador's abduction, organized by a gorgeous Italian girl. Back to Paris, San-Antonio is dismissed by the police chief, Achille Hachille. A real godsend for Bérurier, who get promoted... But soon, the situation degenerates, when the president of the Republic mysteriously disappears. Immediate reaction from Police Minister : San-Antonio is the only one who can save the day. He has 48 hours and a secret squad to find the president. At the Elysée, San-Antonio finds Bérurier, the official investigator. But now, it's every man for himself : who will be the first to find the President ?

San Antonio

2004
Beaujolais Nouveau Is Arrived
4.5

Beaujolais Nouveau Is Arrived, directed by Jean-Luc Voulfow in 1978, is a comedy inspired by the novel by René Fallet that depicts an incredible adventure set against a backdrop of French rurality and popular friendship. The film tells the story of Camadule, an enigmatic and endearing character, respected in his small café "Chez Gaston", where he shares anecdotes and mysteries. One day, his friends entrust him with the sacred mission of fetching several barrels of Beaujolais Nouveau, supposedly belonging to an old countess with whom he is favored. To accomplish this quest, he is joined by the Captain, a former soldier disillusioned by life and its failures, and Kamel, an immigrant worker, all driven by the hope of the new wine and the dream of a collective adventure.

Beaujolais Nouveau Is Arrived

1978
Tartarin de Tarascon
5.3

A well-to-do bourgeois, Tartarin lives in Tarascon, a small southern town, among friends who, like him, love hunting "à la casquette", gossip, aperitifs and thought-provoking journeys. Imaginative like all his compatriots, Tartarin ended up believing he had once been to Shanghai, so fervently did he recount his illusory adventures. It was even rumored that Tartarin was about to leave for Africa to hunt wild beasts, and this was so insistent that the brave man, urged on by his friends, was forced "for the sake of honor" to embark. He arrives in Casablanca, surprised to discover a modern city and not a single lion. But a charming Moorish woman, Baïa, seduces him, and Tartarin indulges in the "delights of Capua". This euphoria is short-lived: Baïa disappears, a false prince, mostly a swindler, finds a replacement and sets off on a hunting expedition in southern Morocco, which will only earn Tartarin the loss of his savings and a blind old lion dragged along by two beggars.

Tartarin de Tarascon

1962
Feu sur le candidat
5.5

Robert Cavaillon is the king of the pet food industry. After he sold the factory to his workers, he decided to run for office. His campaign in support of animal rights gives him a lead in the opinion polls - which worries the main political parties. Since his past is unassailable, his political opponents decide to give the job of getting rid of him to a bizarre couple - a professional killer called Jean and a high-class call girl named Clara. The pair has to ruin him with scandal and then eliminate him for good. Jean's first attempt at his task is a failure: instead of a killer he ends up looking like Cavaillon's savior and friend. Clara is forced to play the role of the killer's tender wife, because their victim sees them as a kindly pair not interested in using him for his position like everyone else. Between one bungled assassination attempt and the next, the three are enmeshed in an intense relationship in which their roles all change.

Feu sur le candidat

1990
Polly West est de retour
8.0

Polly West, a very rich American star, has bought the castle of Sainte Apolline, a small village in Provence. As soon as she arrives, the dynamic actress causes trouble among the inhabitants. After having received her in confession, the priest seems to be taken by madness. To add to the turmoil, the country warden and the grocer enter her service. Honorin, the mayor, tries to cope and maintain order. While the people of the village keep asking questions, Polly flies to the rescue of the beautiful Italian girl Clara, who has been raped by the landlord Léonce. Soon, Honotin discovers that Polly is buying up the village's land using a few nominees. He then understands that this woman is not a stranger and that, a few years ago, the villagers chased her away because she was a mother, and these same villagers caused the death of her parents. Polly has returned to seek revenge.

Polly West est de retour

1993
The Cocottes
5.2

A small village lies peacefully nestled in the hills beneath the Provence sun... until the arrival of an odd group of vacationers. Who are these gorgeous young women from the big city strolling on the village square under the watchful eye of a chaperone as beautiful as she is authoritarian? Scandal arises when it’s learned these dreamy creatures are none other than the employees of a Marseille brothel come to enjoy the good clean air of the country. All hell breaks loose as the villagers take a stand for or against the presence of these "ladies of pleasure". The mayor is called on to relay women of the moral rules of the region to the women. But the fact remains, they can’t be forced to leave: while they have no intention of plying their trade, no law exists to bring their country retreat to a premature end. Different mentalities are revealed, passions unbridled, love kindled... and doesn’t love always solve everything in the end?

The Cocottes

1991
Monsieur de Pourceaugnac
8.0

Mixing real locations with a Louis XIV stage setting, director Michel Mitrani interprets the story first told in Moliere's play of the same name, written for the stage. A slightly supercilious country gentleman, Monsieur de Pourceaugnac (Michel Galabru) has arrived in Paris to marry Julie (Fanny Cottencon) the woman promised him, but he does not know that Julie is in love with a handsome young man and has no interest in marrying the grand Monsieur, at all. She and her lover ask the cunningly clever Sbrigani (Roger Coggio) for help, and he concocts a wild array of characters with claims on the easily gulled Pourceaugnac's attention, including arrogant doctors and women with supposed liens on his matrimonial intentions -- actually no more valid than the ostensible creditors out to collect imaginary debts from the unwary gentlemen. The dialogue and situations are as funny as when Moliere first wrote them, but Mitrani's version may be a bit long and slow for some tastes.

Monsieur de Pourceaugnac

1985
Michel Galabru | MovieMind AI