The idea for this topic occurred to me because I'm thinking of a film but can't remember the title. Instead of creating a new thread to simply ask what movie it is I thought I'd create one where we can recommend a favorite old movie that perhaps other people haven't seen.
I'm going to recommend the one in question, but like I said I can't remember the name. It's a French film from the early 80s about a young man who makes a bootleg tape of a concert performance by his favorite opera singer (a black woman, but like all the other actors here I don't know her name; it's not Jessye Norman or Leontyne Price, I'm sure of that). Somehow, he doesn't notice when his tape gets switched with one containing evidence about a mob crime. In the story, the opera singer has never allowed her voice to be recorded, so the guy knows he has something valuable and wants to protect it, but he has no idea why so many cops and mafiosi are after him.
It's a modern day film noir, and the real set piece is an absolutely riveting chase scene on mopeds that takes place in the tunnels of the Paris Metro (I thought the name of the film was
Metro but apparently not). That chase is probably the most exciting I've ever seen, and I've seen both
Bullit and
The French Connection, et many al.
The style and cinematography of this picture reminded me of another classic French film:
Breathless.
Does anybody know what movie this is, and/or does anybody have another one to recommend?