Acting
A sailor falls in love with a woman he meets at the dockside, but is deeply conflicted because his former lover is in prison.
The eponymous garçonne or flapper is Monique Lerbier, an emancipated French woman who leaves home to escape a marriage of convenience to a man she does not love which her parents have forced on her. She then falls into all sorts of carnal temptations and artificial pleasures previously unknown to her. These include her being seduced into a lesbian love affair by a chanteuse.
Debt-ridden painter Michel is overcome with joy at discovering that he has just won 1 million florins in the Dutch lottery, but almost immediately, he discovers that his softhearted girlfriend, Béatrice, has given away his jacket containing the winning ticket to an elderly petty thief. Soon Michel, Beatrice and Michel's artistic rival, Prosper, are hurtling through the streets of Paris on the trail of the missing jacket.
In 1939, in a maternity ward, a young man visits his mistress who has just given birth to a little girl. He tells her that he is married and that for him the outcome of this adventure was not really planned. The mobilization separates them but the young man will end up divorcing and with the relentless help of a friend, will find his mistress and his child and will be able to marry her in spite of the chaos of the war.
'Advertisement for Film Weekly, in which British actors impersonate Hollywood stars in scenes from recent films; the audience is invited to compete for a prize of £100 for naming the best impersonation.' (BFI)
A doctor is married to an overly jealous wife who wants a divorce. He advises one of his very shy patients to take a mistress when he feels attracted to the latter's fiancée. The "sick", meanwhile, feels weaknesses for the wife.
The plot concerns a comet hurling toward Earth on a collision course and the different reactions to people on the impending disaster.
Locked in a train, a group of suicide candidates await the death promised them by a crook. When they have almost gone mad with anguish, the door opens.
Two middle-class notions dealers live happily with their girl, but an inheritance turns these nice people into snob Nouveaux Riches. Although the aristocracy invites them, the 'Tout-Paris' laughs behind their back. When they invite their would be new friends for a ball in their desirable new mansion, their daughter, sick and tired of being abandoned by her once loving parents, throws the invitations into the Seine.
A young man is involved in a swindle to produce synthetic gold, but fortunately when the fakery is uncovered he still has his girlfriend and a ticket to America.
A historian seeks to clarify the mysterious death of Sire de Malvaleix and will find himself involved in the murder of the current descendant.
As playboys cannot pay their debts anymore,their creditors suggest one of them marry a millionaire's daughter.
"Menaces" deals with the months before WW2 in a hotel :t he fear of the impending war never leaves the guests of an hotel in Paris.
Chouchou leads a happy life between his comrades and his fiancée. But his father wants him to marry a rich American in love with him. Chouchou refuses and looks for work in order to be independent and to marry the one he loves.
Suzanne de Villiers, an illegitimate daughter of a noble family, has a lot of difficulty getting the people of the "high" to accept her feelings for her tutor, the Viscount of Ceran...
The daughter of a nouveau riche family, invited to an upper class ball meant to launch her in society, rejects the offer.
A prominent Parisian judge is a witness to a murder while he is at a rendezvous with his mistress. A woman is arrested for the crime and brought before him for trial. It turns out that the woman is his ex-mistress, and the judge knows that she is not the killer - but if he comes forward, he stands a good chance of ruining his marriage and his career.
