Acting
Monsieur Hulot, Jacques Tati’s endearing clown, takes a holiday at a seaside resort, where his presence provokes one catastrophe after another. Tati’s masterpiece of gentle slapstick is a series of effortlessly well-choreographed sight gags involving dogs, boats, and firecrackers; it was the first entry in the Hulot series and the film that launched its maker to international stardom.
It all begins with the discreet romance between the Creole maid Lea Mariotte and her young boss, George Brissac, an amoral bourgeois who plans to inherit his uncle's fortune and marry a young woman from a good family. After an incident where she kills a man, she is saved from the gallows by Fabian, a ship's captain, who has personal reasons for antagonizing the Brissacs. He takes care of her and falls in love with her, but doesn't tell her. She, in turn, takes the opportunity to return to her lover Brissac's arms, forcing him to marry her after seeing him murder his uncle.
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.
When a reclusive, enigmatic millionaire dies suddenly on the Riviera, his press agent begins to investigate his employer's shady past.
A Russian emigrant sings in a Shanghai nightclub under the assumed name of Kay Murphy. All she dreams of is a peaceful life with her daughter Vera. But this is only a pipe dream as she has been forced by her former lover Ivan to work for a secret criminal organization, "The Black Dragon". Vera, who studies in a Hong Kong boarding-school, knows nothing about her mother's past. When Ivan, who is also Vera's father, resurfaces and blackmails Kay, the young woman is determined to fight back...
Claude, son of a ruined family, pretends to be a dangerous trickster in order to get credit from the guys in the middle. He is in charge of retrieving compromising letters from a woman whose lover fears blackmail. But before arriving there, Claude fortunately meets love.
The young Paulette is placed by her tutor in a boarding school in Lausanne. It is at the neighboring dance hall, by running away for a short time, that she will find love.
A wealthy banker, bored with his life, heads to the Latin Quarter of Paris where he pretends to be a struggling artist. He falls in love with a student from the Sorbonne and moves into the same boarding house as her while continuing his pretence of poverty.
A rich Brazilian, Mendoza, visited Paris in 1900 and was romantically involved with the star of Offenbach's 'La vie parisienne' which was playing at the time. Thirty five years later, he returns with his son and granddaughter, who is engaged to a young Frenchman. But Mendoza's puritanical son forbids the marriage. Mendoza and the actress's friends conspire to change his mind and convert him to 'Parisian life.'
Raymond Bernard’s film of a script by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (The Little Prince) about a young woman who aspires to become a pilot.
A young woman's comfortable life with her boyfriend is disrupted when he leaves for military duty, entrusting her to a playboy friend seeking a fake marriage for inheritance. Complications arise as a prince enters the scene, pursuing her romantically.
Trapon, a bank employee, is in love with Mrs. Lavator, who wants to marry off her two daughters before marrying her. As one of the two fiancés of his daughters has no money, Trapon begins to embezzle sums of money in his cash box.
Marc Lanterne and Monsieur Smith investigate the home of a castellan who is the victim of jealousy, justified by the way, of his wife. Monsieur Dunoyau wants to know the author of the anonymous letters he receives. After a whole series of extraordinary adventures, the truth comes out and Dunoyau is reconciled with his wife.
