elmore, CHILDREN OF PARADISE is probably my favourite foreign films and one of my favourite films about theatre.
Woody, if you liked the costumes in Adventures of Robin Hood, you should watch the extras on the DVD where Basil Rathbone is trying on about twenty differenet helmets.
BK, I first saw Le Bossu/On Guard at the City of Lights/City of Angels film festival they have here every year and is partially hosted by the WGA. I loved the film and, as you say, it has some of the best swordplay ever filmed. I got to speak with Vincent Perez afterward.
I get invited to this film festival every year because I was part of a French/American culture exchange that they used to do back in the nineties where several American film-makers were invited each year to sit on panels at a film conference in Beaune. I was on a panel at the very first one...and that year, I took on the great cultural imperialist, Jack Valenti, who loved to cram the big studio American film product down Europe's throat which the Europeans, particularly the French, hate. They were also not fond of Valenti...so when I exhorted the Europeans to hold onto their culture against the onslaught of crass American product , I was adored as if I was new Jerry Lewis or something...director Claude Lanzmann called me a "hero". It was a great weekend and the film festival is a lot of fun. Auteuil is usually at least one of the films each year. You must see him in Queen Margot.