The beauty of collections like these is that it allows a vista into lesser-known works by a greatly-known cinema talent like Catherine Deneuve. None of these pictures are really all that great, but that’s honestly beside the point. What The Catherine Deneuve Collection offers is a peek at both the build-up and decline of Deneuve’s wild supernova ascension to cinematic fame. Sets like these don’t include the classics – Belle du jour and her other masterpieces are nowhere to be found – but they let viewers soak up more marginal efforts of the star’s oeuvre. It may not be a consistently engaging experience, but it makes for a helluva film class.

First up is Manon 70 (1968), a very typical battle of the sexes starring Catherine and Sami Frey. Deneuve’s title character is every man’s fantasy – everywhere she walks in the film, male eyes follow. But once Francois (Frey) gets ahold of her, she changes her tune… or does she? This bizarre film tries to offer a thematic basis that true love can only truly be achieved when a man owns a woman; Francois doesn’t so much fall in love with Manon as he trains her to be his mate. But it lacks the kind of whimsy that would make such an antiquated, arcane sensibility take root.

Le Choc (1982) is even less sea-worthy. This hitman adventure starring French icon Alain Delon as a hardened, finessed criminal who decides he’s had enough of the rat-a-tat life and heads for the country. Of course, his mob boss (Francois Perrot) wants Christian (Delon) back at any cost, but unfortunately, Christian meets young Claire (Deneuve) in the country and loses all interest in handguns (temporarily). Once the two fall in love – Christian has to steal Claire away from her simpleton husband, natch – they become a Bonnie & Clyde-esque team of lovers trying to exorcise their seedy pasts by shooting them down in a blaze of glory. The only problem is that Le Choc is a painfully underwritten film that reeks of cashing in on a new sub-genre just because it’s "what the kids are watching." Delon is an effortlessly charismatic leading man, and it goes without saying that Deneuve can command a screen, but Le Choc is bad enough of a movie that it wastes both talents equally. They deserve better.

Le Sauvage (1975) is a bit of a step forward in that it at least gives Deneuve some better character meat to chew on. She plays Nelly, a seriously outrageous lady who, within the first twenty minutes of the film, leaves her fiancée the night before the wedding, steals a painting to try to get out of her adopted Venezuela and ends up joining forces with Yves Montand's character in an attempt to find safety in numbers as she eludes both her ex-flame and the authorities. Yeah, they fall in love and yeah, they do indeed give the slip to those who want to hold them back, but even though Deneuve seems to have a great time wrapping herself in such a zany character, Le Sauvage’s manic sensibilities never quite hit home.

Speaking of missing the mark, Hotel des Ameriques (1981) is one damned distant movie. Deneuve’s Helene is the kind of deeply flawed, terrifically haunted woman who can’t seem to get past the death of her latest beau, but does her best to fall for the dreamy Gilles (Patrick Dewaere) anyway. Basically, Deneuve has about ninety minutes’ worth of I want to be alone’moments; nearly every scene she’s in involves some kind of soul-crunching sadness that threatens to send her over the edge. Director Andre Techine has worked wonders with Deneuve since (Ma saison preferee and Les Voleurs are both exceptional), but here he seems so enraptured with Deneuve’s presence that he doesn’t give her more than one note to play. Deneuve dazzles – you could almost watch her performance without sound as it’s very silent-film-esque in its histrionics – but the film is not up to snuff.

Fort Saganne (1984), to be perfectly honest, doesn’t belong in this set. This groaningly long period piece starring Gerard Depardieu is a mundane affair to begin with, but rubbing salt in the wound is the fact that Deneuve doesn’t even come on screen until after the halfway mark. And just as her amorous journalist character appears, she disappears until the film’s coda. As a WW I costume drama/epic, the film falters (to say the least); as a Catherine Deneuve film, it hardly even counts.

So, no, none of the films included in the Catherine Deneuve Collection are worth their weight, but for those of us with far more than a passing fancy for the lovely actress, it goes without saying that bad Catherine Deneuve films are better than no Catherine Deneuve films at all.

The Video: How Does The Disc Look?

The transfers vary in minor degrees, but for the most part, they’re pretty standard. On disc one, Manon 70 doesn’t look quite as good as Le Choc, but that’s mostly due to the fact that one is 10+ years older than the other (they both showcase a degree of grain issues, but what are you gonna do?). Disc two houses an impressive 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer of Hotel des Ameriques – colors are really punchy and well-defined – but Le Sauvage’s transfer doesn’t manifest the same attention to detail. And Fort Saganne’s 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer is probably the best of the bunch – partly because it’s the most recently-made film here and partly because the film’s transfer showcases excellently thorough black levels and crisp finely grained detail. None of the transfers are exemplary, but even the least impressive-looking films have standard presentations on this set. It could be worse.
 
The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

The French-language mono mixes are less engaging. A bit of clean-up has been done, but for the most part, these tracks are pretty plain. Dialogue comes across fairly well, and while each film’s musical score is constrained by monaural limitations and limited dynamic ranges, even those sound all right. 

English and Spanish subtitles are included.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

None.

Exclusive DVD-ROM Features: What happens when you pop the disc into your PC?

There are no DVD-ROM features on this DVD.

Final Thoughts

The Catherine Deneuve Collection doesn’t make me love her any less, but even as a crash-course in some of her lesser-known works, it doesn’t exactly add to her mystique. With appropriate video transfers and standard sound tracks on all three discs, hardcore Deneuve fans will not fully regret checking these out, but I’d definitely rent them before you buy. Those with less familiar Deneuve experience should go straight to Belle de jour instead.