Jane Marken

In a chaotic 19th-century Paris teeming with aristocrats, thieves, psychics, and courtesans, theater mime Baptiste is in love with the mysterious actress Garance. But Garance, in turn, is loved by three other men: pretentious actor Frederick, conniving thief Lacenaire, and Count Edouard of Montray.

Paris, 1956. Three sisters, three actresses willing to do almost anything to make it big. Their lives, their loves, their dramas. A savory satire of the world of show business and cinema in particular.

Muichkine, a young Russian prince, returns home to St. Petersburg from a mental institution, determined to spread decency and kindness in the harsh and cruel world. He becomes betrothed to an innocent young girl while trying to save a less-innocent woman from her own travail, but jealousy and his own naivete conjoin to bring about unimaginable tragedy.

Alexandre Dumas' romantic novel Lady of the Camelias (more popularly known as Camille) was filmed twice in 1953, first in Argentina, then in France. The Argentine film was heavily modernized, while the French version returns to Dumas' 19th-century milieu. Micheline Presle is excellent as Marguerite, the gorgeous courtesan who flits from man to man until she finds true love in the form of the much-younger Armand (Rolande Alexandre). Though he is willing to marry her despite her past, she is persuaded to forsake him, lest his reputation be ruined. The story then wends its way towards its famous tragic finale, as the consumptive Marguerite is permitted a few brief moments of happiness before her flame is permanently extinguished. Advertised as the seventh version of the Dumas classic, La Dame aux Camelias was certainly not the last.

Juliette Hardy is sexual dynamite, and has the men of a French coastal town panting. But Antoine, the only man who affects her likewise, wouldn't dream of settling down with a woman his friends consider the town tramp.

In post-Liberation Paris, a man reunites with a friend and meets the woman of his dreams, only to discover her brother's dark past.

The family of a Parisian shop-owner spends a day in the country. The daughter falls in love with a man at the inn, where they spend the day.

In France in 1946, the difficult return to civilian life of five deportees and prisoners of war after having lived through the hell of the Second World War.

A shimmering glass hotel at the top of a remote Provençal mountain provides the setting for a tragicomic tapestry about an obsessive love pentangle, whose principals range from an artist to a hotel manager to a dam worker.

A bank clerk is bored to death with his nine-to-five work under his boss ' watchful eye. His missus is a pain in the neck and his in-laws are not better.

A smooth criminal, who turns to be Manuel Ismora, and his gang successfully and peacefully pull off con after heist. Elsewhere a timid office worker, Gabriel Dupon, is pressured by his boss...

During the cold and rainy off-season a man arrives in a seaside town and, giving his name only as Pierre, checks into the only hotel which remains open. His arrival arouses curiosity and a degree of suspicion, as people note that he appears to know the area, yet gives no explanation for his presence at that bleak time of year in the dead-end town.

Jojo’s ambition is to become a gangster, but to be admitted into a gang he has to prove himself by committing a daring act. To that end, he kills someone in broad daylight, not knowing that his victim is an actor who is playing a scene in a film directed by a cranky film-maker (Darry Cowl). The murder is caught on film, leading Commissaire Bernard (Michel Simon) to think that the killer will be easy to find. Sure enough, Bernard soon makes his arrest, a clown from a circus, but then he faces an almost insurmountable problem. The clown has an identical twin, who is also a clown with the same circus. Both men claim to be innocent…

A young couple's suicide pact goes awry, leaving the woman to face her survival with a new admirer while pining for her lost love.

Henri Chatelard is well into his forties, owns a restaurant and a cinema in the city, and appreciates women. When he meets Marie, an 18-ish strong-head who just lost her father in a small fishing village, it is not clear who is the hunter and who is the prey.

The history of one of France's most famous streets is retold, featuring multiple performances from Guitry himself.

A railway worker, Leguignon, and his wife are forced to move into a house located in a shaggy part of town. What Leguignon doesn't know is that a group of children have discovered a treasure and keeps it stored in the house. Trouble ensues when he discovers the cache and tries to claim it as his own.

Life is so dull in a quiet little neighborhood that gossips, eager for some kind of scandal to brighten things up, imagine their haberdasher has been having quite a raunchy sex life.

Ferdinand is an honest and almost prude chemist at the Fourageot laboratories. His boss, Mr Fourageot, is mostly busy with his mistresses but comes to be worried with his young and outgoing daughter.

Mr. Bouton, a modest carpenter from Faubourg-Saint-Antoine, widower and father of Pinpin, a little boy, marries Mrs. Colombe, mother of Ninette, a little girl. Soon deceived and abandoned, he raises the two children alone. As an adult, Pinpin falls in love with Ninette, but she is in love with Gérard Garnier, whom she soon marries. The children gone, Bouton finds himself alone and one Christmas evening meets Mrs. Marie, a mother who raises her two children alone.

Captain Benoit successfully completes a mission in Berlin, but when he returns to Paris he escapes attacks by German agents.

Jacques de Chardin, runner of women, marries a rich and young American, Mary-Ann. He does not give up, however, his conquests and has an affair with Chouquette. His wife and her friend, Baron Sigismond, decide to fake an affair in order to get revenge.

"Les Trois Valses" traces the love story of two people over three eras. In the first waltz (music based on Johann Strauss I), Yvonne is a sensitive Parisian ballet dancer, whose romance with a dashing officer is brought to an abrupt end by his family. She goes off to Vienna to become a big star. In the second waltz, her daughter, an even bigger star, but now of Paris music halls, has a brief flirtation with the rakish man-about-town who is the son of suitor number one. She throws him over pretty quickly for a chance to shine at a Gala performance. Finally, in the third waltz, the two get together, when she is a movie star, and he is posing as an insurance salesman.

An honest taxi driver gets into trouble by looking for a customer who left her purse full of cash in her vehicle.

Jules Frémissin is shy and in love. The father of the object of his flame is also shy. The marriage proposal is very laborious, because before marrying Cécile Thibaudier, Jules must fight a duel with the arrogant Vancouver, convinced that all this eager and awkward courtship was intended for his own wife, also named Cécile.

An adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "Le Eternel Mari", a somber story of marital infidelity, revenge and near madness, and starring Raimu in his last film appearance.

A retelling of Tristan and Isolde set in 1940s France.

A brave bookseller raises his four daughters alone, all of whom he employs in his shop. They are especially interested in their sentimental stories. Rosine, the youngest, falls in love with Francis, fiancé of Edith, the eldest. But Francis pushes her away and Rosine announces that she is going to commit suicide. Bertrand, a young doctor, decides to stop her by watching over her. After a few adventures, everything finally works out. Edith keeps her fiancé, the father, from whom the adventure has been hidden, returns to the usual course of his life and Bertrand and Rosine find themselves alone.

Philippe Clarence, a famous Parisian dressmaker, seduces his friend's fiancee. But, for the first time in his life, this is for real. The film is also a sharp picture of the fashion world.

Simon's life is troubled by images of a crime which happened in his family a hundred years ago. While traveling in south France, he finds the landscape familiar. That's when he meets Catherine and falls in love. But her lover comes back and his strong personality attracts her again.

Hélène, a young waitress working in a bar frequented by German soldiers, saves the life of Pierre, a Resistance fighter. Her jealous lover has her arrested first and then released. Later on, Hélène is wounded while walking in the streets. Pierre has her transported to friends with the hope of taking her to London with him. Unfortunately, owing to lack of space in the plane, Pierre has to fly alone. Hélène has to wait several weeks before being able to board a new plane. When the day comes at last, the Germans are waiting for the plane on the clandestine airfield.

Petrus, a Montmartre photographer, is accidentally wounded by Migo, a dancer at the Frou Frou night club, when she is trying to shoot her faithless lover Rodrigue, a counterfeiter. Though Petrus tries to reconcile the lovers, Migo lands up with him after Rodrigue is finally killed by another jealous dancer.

Young, handsome, dashing but cynical, Octave Mouret arrives in Paris, determined to conquer the belles of the capital.

A debate on the definition of the word laughter, organized by Madame de Saint-Jules and two academicians, illustrated by film extracts, turns into a huge battle of cream pies.

She dragged out a more than mediocre life in the port of Antwerp; he is a renowned pianist-virtuoso. These two solitary beings, totally different, meet by chance on a liner and gradually realize that they complement each other harmoniously.

In an isolated house, in Brittany, live two sisters around whom gravitate a whole series of strange characters. Between the eruption of the vagrant voyeur and that of the couple in love, the youngest kills her eldest and goes mad.

During a singles meal, the phone rings. A woman claims a man, Jean-Louis. As a joke, the master of the house replies that he is gone forever and advises him to take the plunge. But she obeys and the suicide appears in the newspapers. Tested, the master of the house takes in the child of the unfortunate woman.

Duped by a pretty woman who uses him to smuggle a suitcase containing the proceeds of a theft through the station, an honest fellow understands everything and replaces the suitcase with a similar one. The police do not understand anything, but the pretty girl promises to become honest like the one who almost was her pigeon.

Jacques Audoin falls in love with a pianist, Evelyne Clery, and marries her. In reality, he had wanted to approach her, because he imagined that she had witnessed the murder of the lover of his first wife. Evelyne learns what has happened and, revolted by what she thinks is her husband's plot, commits suicide. Jacques confesses his crime.

Fred Peloux, nicknamed Chéri, the handsome son of Charlotte Peloux, a former demimondaine, lives in the small circle of his mother's friends, all high-class prostitutes past their best. He has an affair with Léa, a waning beauty, who loves him both as a mistress and a mother. But the age difference takes its toll on their union. To please his mother, Chéri accepts to marry young Edmée without actually caring for her. After a while, the young man tries to return to Léa...

Judge Julien Lamy regularly deals with the welfare of children, namely down on their luck delinquents. When an orphan named Alain Robert burns down a barn belonging to his abusive foster family, Judge Lamy has no choice but to send him to a juvenile jail. There he meets an older boy named Francis Lanoux, who is desperate to escape and be reunited with his girlfriend Sylvette. The boys eventually flee the institution, as Francis goes in search of his lost love and Alain continues looking for his parents. Unfortunately, the little rebels run into some big problems once on the outside.

Maurice Vallier, nicknamed "Ma Pomme"(which means "myself" in slang), is a cheerful man, well aware that money does not make happiness and who, of all things, prices freedom. Which is why he has become a tramp and he has never regretted his choice of life. Things go smoothly until the day he inherits a huge amount of money. He first refuses it but changes his mind when he realizes that thanks to the inheritance he can help others. Even more enticing is the fact that he must share the big money with a charming air hostess. However once he deems he has done enough good he gives up the money left and resumes his old lifestyle singing along "Ma pomme c'est moi, j'suis plus heureux qu'un roi..."

In order to escape the police, a man takes the place of his missing sister, who was clairvoyant.

Adrien Moulinet, a modest encashing agent in the Nortier bank, is also an inventor in his spare time. His latest revolutionary creation is the motorized roller skate. His problem is to be able to market them. Jules Petitpas, a jobless adman, is the right man for that.

Lucien Bourrache, a good looking non-commissioned officer at the Spahis, is used to charm many women. He met Madeleine Courtois at Cannes. She is beautiful and lives in luxury. He lends her a large amount of money, which she loses gambling. Then she drops him. But Lucien is now in love, and once demobilized, he goes to Paris to find her again. But he's not so sexy without his uniform, and Madeleine and him do not belong to the same milieu.

A teacher runs an ad in the newspaper to find a wife. Afraid of beautiful ladies, he weds an ugly woman. After a car accident, he meets a doctor who offers to reveal his wife's beauty.

A woman who has a terrible secret to conceal takes refuge on a barge.

Saint-Maurice, an ordinary peaceful village, lived healthily so much so that the local doctor's practice was scant. But that was before Dr. Parpalaid retired and was replaced by a charlatan by the name of Knock. A real genius this one, for he soon managed to persuade everyone that they were ill. And not only didn't they resent him but they even loved their physician, who made a fortune and brought prosperity to the village by turning it into a big hospital.

The evocation of Paris in the 1920s mingles with the rapid rise of the irresistible Caprice, a talented singer, and her tumultuous love affair with Jeff the composer. A photographer nicknamed Bagnolet, a gentle anarchist, gently monitors the activities of Caprice, who has become Lady Paname and, in the absence of morality, makes love triumph.

A comedy about a dimwitted man who must obtain a high-school diploma before he can inherit an inn.

A couple of dancers performs in a night club. The man is jealous of Gina, his partner,and keeps making scenes to her, going as far as bullying her on the stage during their act. A man gets killed. The dancer is suspected for being jealous of all the other men. Another potential culprit could the father of Gina since he overprotected his daughter. The real culprit will be unmasked after the police detective finds the murder has something to with the Occupation period.

Malou, a prostitute from Montmartre, and her pimp, have found a well laid scheme : whenever she (or he) wants to get rid of a lover, she announces to him in a tearful voice that she is pregnant. The reaction of the fall guy-is invariable: he gives her compensation money and disappears. But there is always an exception to the rule. And, as it happens, the exception is a widowed insurer, Monsieur Archibald. Indeed when he is told by Malou that he is going to be a father, he is...elated!

Dedee is a prostitute, working in Monsieur Rene's night club on Antwerp's harbour. The porter is Marco, her pimp. Dedee is not happy, until she meets Francesco, an italian sailorman. They fall in love and Dedee begins to dream about an escape of her daily dullness.

Story of an aging dandy who is the factotum and arranger of female conquests for a brusque young millionaire.

Lyrical biography of the classical composer, depicted as a romantic hero, an accursed artist.

A man falls in love with Lina , a hot girl with a racy past who creates a sensation among the workers.

The writer Pierre Carot became rich and famous with his book "Life as a Couple", which was based on the loving relationships of four couples. Now he's setting up his will and wants to leave his wealth to the couples among the four, which are still as deeply in love - if any: else, his companions get the money. He sends them out to visit the couples and test their love.

Evelyne, a woman of bourgeois origin, now reduced to dancing in a sleazy nightclub, is reunited with her first love, who has become a successful doctor.

A man of of principle leads a double life: one for his mistress and one he takes home to his wife.

To protect him, Georges takes the place of his twin brother, Jacques, suspected of murdering an aircraft manufacturer and stealing the plans for a revolutionary engine. He sets out to compromise the police investigation and the actions of the document smugglers seeking to recover the plans.

As a favor to his grandmother, singer Rudy Hirigoyen agrees to sing incognito, under the name Romano, in the nightclub his cousin Gustave has just opened in a small seaside resort. The staff and musicians are students camping out in the pine forest near "L'Auberge Fleurie". Grandma has rented the apartment above the club to summer guests: Commandant Portafaux and his wife.

Leon Rollo whose nickname is "Patate" is an inventor adored by his wife and is daughter. He is mostly happy but his best friend Noël seems to succeed in everything he undertakes... Patate become increasingly jealous of this incredible luck.

In pre-World Ward I in Paris, a budding artist, Pierre LeBlanc, falls in love and marries Janine, a dressmaker's assistant. Pierre has a flair for designing clothes, and he and his bride live in a blissful paradise, until the war breaks out and he becomes a soldier. Janine dies in childbirth and, no longer desiring to live, Pierre volunteers for a dangerous patrol behind German lines. While recuperating in the hospital from a wound he received on the mission, Pierre spends his time drawing sketches of dresses. He becomes rich and famous after the war. Years later, after devoting himself to his daughter, Pierre seeks a marriage with a girl no older than his daughter. A conflict develops and to ensure his daughter's happiness, Pierre sacrifices his own plans.

Edited from 4½ hours of unused material left over from the shooting of Jean Renoir's 1936 PARTIE DE CAMPAGNE (A Day in the Country) and donated by the producer Pierre Braunberger to the Cinémathèque Française. Re-edited for a new version, much of the film is shot with synchronised sound with Renoir's voice instructing and guiding the actors.

Bitru is a carefree fellow who, one day, decides to buy a houseboat on the River Seine. He moves there and starts living surrounded by a circle of colorful friends. Among them, the daughter of an auto maker but also a group of scientists who have developed "Aqua Simplex", a device that could enable motorists to fill their tanks with... water ! Panic sets in in the automobile industry and Bitru is appointed his friends' middle man to represent them on the various car makers directors' boards.

A little town erupts in turmoil about the construction of a public urinal. The army is sent in to restore order, but the military add to the confusion by getting involved with the local women.

If an old man's niece does not claim her inheritance at the notary's office by the appointed time, his fortune will go to his housekeeper.

Pierre Rossi and Béatrice live in the same block of flats in Marseille and love each other. One night, Béatrice leaves her apartment. Pierre knows that his fiancée goes to a rendezvous, but she would not tell him more than just that. Worried, Pierre follows her but he is attacked and stolen his identity papers by two men, Tom and Nasol, on the payroll of Quaglio, one of the city's bosses. Later on, Quaglio kills Nasol and deposits the body in a garage, leaving Pierre's papers nearby. As for Pierre, he manages to follow Tom to a villa where several young women have been invited. Pierre, horrified, realizes that this place is the headquarters for the white slave trade. - Written by Guy Bellinger

Having cured the local café owner, Diogène Leguignon becomes convinced that he is a healer and possesses the fluid. His wife sees the benefits of this gift and urges Diogene to exercise his power, particularly on a wealthy old man, M. Coq. Arlette Leguignon, however, is in love with a young doctor, who is violently opposed to her future father-in-law. Leguignon ends up condemned and, disgusted, no longer wants to look after others. When Mr. Coq dies, making him his legatee, Leguignon has to contend with the Coq family. This time, Doctor Martinet comes to his defense. The inheritance is used to build a clinic where Leguignon can carry out his experiments as a magnetizer.

Paris at the Belle Epoque. Monsieur de Pontagnac, a perfect honest man, loves pretty women too much and that plays him many tricks. What need does he have to follow the pretty Lucienne Vatelin, home, to find himself in the presence of the husband, the notary Vatelin, who is part of his circle? From there, many characters will meet, avoid each other, find each other. Adultery, domestic scenes and reconciliation will be their lot.

A couple of refugees arrives in a village: he is a cabinet maker, she's pregnant and the innkeeper refuses to give them a room; they wind up in the cowshed of a farm where she gives birth to her baby, the very night of Christmas.

Arlette and her brother are penniless orphans; as the man is to leave for Africa to work for a long time, the young girl is forced to live with her cousins, four spinsters, who place virtue over everything.

A tramp, a vagrant, returns twenty years later to the village where he had seduced a young girl. He forces her father to marry her off.

Robert Montfort, happily married to Solange, is his parents-in-law's pet aversion though. To them he is a punk, a good for nothing, a small-time, untalented poet! Robert, who is more gifted than what they think, manages, following a workmate's recommendation, to debut as an entertainer in a nightclub and -even better- to please the audience. Not daring tell the truth to Solange he starts leading a double life, being Robert Montfort in the daytime and Jean Rigobert at night. Of course his wife wonders what is going on and worries about his regular night outings. Only too happy, her parents incite her to have a divorce. Fortunately, all comes right in the end.

France, July 1782. During her birthday, the beautiful young Marchioness Caroline meets the attractive soldier Gaston. It's love at first sight but Gaston does not wish to make a commitment because a military career waits for him. Caroline marries then a politician but the French Revolution bursts and Caroline has to run away to escape the guillotine. By running away she meets Gaston again who decides to help her.

On the morning of January 30, 1889, the Archduke Rodolphe de Habsbourg and his mistress Marie Vetsera were found dead. The remains of Rodolphe are discreetly repatriated to Hofburg, while that of Mary is hastily thrown into the depths of a tomb.

Thérèse, a young flower girl, tries hard to remain virtuous but the whole world seems to conspire against her, whether her petty Paris family, or her relatives in the province bristling with false respectability, or her lustful employer, or the boy she loves who seduces her and abandons her. But at the end of the day there is Yvon, her childhood friend. Will he be the one that will love her truly?

"Easiest Profession" - Tistin is the only unemployed man in Clochemerle. Obliged to use their tax money to keep Tistin alive, the other guys in town insist that he find some sort of work. Tistin obligingly takes a few jobs, working for the various ladies in town. Before long, the menfolk become convinced that Tistin is using this cover to play the field, and they're angry at him all over again.

In this romantic drama, a middle-aged gambler tells a casino croupier her life story. The story is told in flashback and chronicles the woman's romantic exploits with men. Though she was involved with many men, only one really touched her heart. He was a bartender who was tragically shot and killed during an attempted robbery. She later marries and has a daughter. Unfortunately she alienates herself from her daughter when she has an affair with her daughter's fiance. Her remorse is short lived. The film jumps back to the present with the woman leaving the casino on the arm of a handsome millionaire.

L'homme de ma vie stars Madeleine Robinson as Madeleine, who after being abandoned by her lover is forced to raise her baby all by herself. Supporting herself and her child as a prostitute, Madeleine manages to give her daughter an expensive girl's-school education, all the while keeping her own identity and profession a secret. The girl grows up to be an insufferable snob; nonetheless, Madeleine attempts to re-establish a relationship. Things take a sorry turn when the daughter takes drastic actions to defend her mother's honor.

The life of a weak-willed man is thrust into a downward spiral by the scheming of his manipulative girlfriend and her mother.

Three events that seemingly nothing related, namely the murder of a truck driver, the discovery of the corpse of a vitriolic young woman, and the death of another who was crushed, will launch the Inspector Maréchal on the trail of a prostitution network. The girl-mother Olga, a friend of the trucker, confesses her the underwear of the women's exploitation.

Alice Rémon, a pharmacist, is a prostitute who managed to leave the streets by getting married. Her husband dies one day, poisoned. Her mother-in-law, who hates her, accuses her of murder.

An industrialist badly in need of money hopes to marry his daughter off to a rich suitor, but she only has eyes for her penniless childhood sweetheart.

After his wife's death, a man discovers that his daughter may not be his.

A group of drifting youngsters train to commit petty thefts. A certain André puts them on the trail of a real hold-up. They might carry it out if a suicide attempt didn't stop them. A young woman throws herself into the river. They save her, comfort her, learn that she's pregnant. They surround her with their friendship. When André reappears and seizes Lucienne to throw her on the pavement, everyone unites to save her, and the kind-hearted Maurice offers to be the baby's loving father.