In 2009, as part of its “Smooth Originals” campaign, Belgian beer purveyor Stella Artois released three short “classic French movies” that had secretly served as the inspiration for the 1988 classic Die Hard (or actually 1995’s Die Hard with a Vengeance), the 2002 hip-hop drama film 8 Mile, and the Bush-era TV series 24, respectively.

The tagline is “The films Hollywood didn’t want you to see.” The idea’s supposed to be that all good things were really French first—or Belgian! We aren’t really sure. The movies are a lot of fun though, and have been executed brilliantly, in the manner of dudes like Godard, Truffaut, Rivette, and so on. It’s quite a bit as if the people behind Italian Spiderman had decided to turn their attention to skewering Godard’s Breathless (although perhaps after taking some Quaaludes).

8 Mile is transformed into 8 Kilomètres (purportedly une Séléction Officielle at the 1961 Côte d’Azur Film Festival), but instead of a bunch of Detroit homeys swapping rhymes, it’s two affected French beatnik types playing the dozens in a smoky Monte Carlo jazz bistro. The best of the bunch might be Vingt-Quatre Heures (Séléction Officielle, 1964 Côte d’Azur Film Festival), in which the Jack Bauer substitute is a sleepy fellow named Jacques who, informed that “millions of people are going to die” within 24 hours, prefers to peruse Camus’ L’Étranger in his bathrobe rather than save them, because after all, “sauvez le monde, c’est tellement ... bourgeois” (”... saving the world, it’s so ... bourgeois”).

In Dial Hard (Séléction Officielle at the 1963 Festival de Monte Carlo), a foxy chick named “Simone” leads suave “Inspector MeQlain” all over town with telephoned riddles in a deadly game of “Simone Says” (this is the plot of Die Hard with a Vengeance), but the ever-capable MeQlain, who can finish both a novel and a chess game within the same two minutes, decides to make a play for her instead. 
 

 
The full videos and posters for Vingt-Quatre Heures and 8 Kilomètres after the jump…

 
Our knowledge of French New Wave cinema of the late ‘50s and early ‘60s is generally limited to the names of innovators and auteurs like Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Goddard.

But although less well-known outside of France, director Claude Chabrol—who died earlier today at age 80—started the movement with Goddard and Truffaut, and became one of the most prolific filmmakers of his time, averaging a film per year until his death.

A Hitchcock acolyte like his compatriot Truffaut, Chabrol played a key part in mainstreaming La Nouvelle Vague. Although he smoothed out some of the genre’s signature styles—improvisation, quick cuts and scene changes, characters stepping out of roles or addressing the camera—Chabrol retained the sense of alienation that imbued Paris as the Algerian War was coming to its pathetic end.

Dealing in class, desire, and compulsion, Chabrol brought a new view of film to the masses. Check out this scene from his fourth feature, Les Bonnes Femmes (The Good Time Girls, 1960), which follows the travails of four angst-ridden shop girls, each dealing with their drab existences in order to follow their obsessions, whether it’s the city’s nightlife or that mysterious motorcycle man.
 

 
Get: Les Bonnes Femmes by Claude Chabrol (1960) [DVD]