Acting
Three stories about pleasure. The first one is about a man hiding his age behind a mask to keep going to balls and fancying women - pleasure and youth. Then comes the long tale of Madame Tellier taking her girls (whores) to the country for attending her niece's communion - pleasure and purity. And lastly, Jean the painter falls in love with his model - pleasure and death.
The story of the Swiss soldier, Henri Dunant, who was responsible for the founding of the Red Cross, and who was offered the first Nobel Peace Prize.
The exploits of Chief Police Inspector Chabrier, first before the invasion of France in May 1940 as he fights against spies preparing the coming the Germans, particularly Emmy de Welder, the alleged manager of the Rouen hospital. Later, Chabrier and his men go underground and resist the occupiers whatever the price to pay. When the Liberation comes Chabrier resumes his activities at the French National Police.
The Marquis de Montauran was appointed to command the Chouans whose first two revolts were crushed. An aristocrat, Marie-Nathalie de Verneuil, is sent by Joseph Fouché to seduce and capture him.
Breton doctor René Laennec fights tooth and nail against consumption, all the more desperately as his brother Michaud has just died of it.
Andre Noblet, a 21-year-old French artist falls madly in love with Christine, the mother of two children. He tells Chistine he will tell all to her husband and demand her freedom. Christine learns that her husband has been carrying on a romance of his own and they have a meeting.
Émile Boulard is a props man in a Paris movie studio. He has a wife, Suzanne. Or to be more accurate, let's say he HAD a wife since she left him fifteen years before, allegedly ... to go buy a post stamp. But now that their daughter Martine , who lives with her, is old enough to marry, she resurfaces. She confesses that, in order to explain his absence, she has told Martine her father was a great explorer and lion hunter in Africa. Not to disappoint his daughter, Émile accepts to pose as the adventurer he is supposed to be. At the same time he will help Daniel, Martine's bashful fiancé, not to become a henpecked husband like him.
Daughter of a French officer and an Annamite, Mahlia was brought up in Indochina by Mr. and Mrs. de Roussière. Their son, Henri, would like to marry her but they are against it. Mahlia flees and Henri is killed for trying to protect her. The young girl enters the Mission to raise children there in the love of France.
During the stagecoach trip of a frightened group of inhabitants of Rouen, Elisabeth Rousset, known as "Boule de Suif", renders these people a signal service, but comes up against their stupidity and their sufficiency. A little later, Boule de Suif assassinates the formidable Prussian lieutenant whom his friends had nicknamed Fifi and who shamelessly displayed his taste for pillage and his sadistic tendencies.
Gérard Favier is a famous composer who is deeply in love with his wife Sylvia. The couple meet Monelle, a pretty, talented young pianist and ardent admirer of Gérard Favier. The musician takes the young woman under his wing and launches her to success. But a tabloid reveals an affair between the composer and his protégée.
An airplane manufacturer asks his son-in-law to try out the prototypes he builds. This one ends up having an accident because of fatigue, and pushes the sacrifice to help his rival.
Director Jean Delannoy's immediate followup to his brilliant Les Jeux sont Faits was the more conventional Aux Yeux du Souvenir (aka Souvenir and To the Eyes of Memory). The film is based on a true story, wherein an France airliner managed to survive a journey from Rio De Janeiro to Dakar with two of its engines incapacitated. To this already intensely dramatic situation has been added a romantic subplot involving Claire Magny (Michele Morgan) and Jacques Forester (Jean Marais). The love story adds very little to the film; fortunately, neither does it detract from the film's overall quality. As was the case with many French productions of the 1940s, Aux Yeux du Souvenir benefits immeasurably from the Wagnerian musical score by Georges Auric.
Between eleven o’clock and midnight one evening, a notorious trafficker Jérôme Vidauban is shot whilst walking in a tunnel in Paris. The case is assigned to Inspector Carrel, who is Vidauban’s perfect double. Using his resemblance to the arch criminal, Carrel manages to infiltrate in Vidauban’s circle of acquaintances and contacts. He becomes embroiled in a bizarre web of intrigue and discovers no shortage of possible murder suspects, all of whom appear to be surprised to see him still alive.
Five young people - brothers, sisters, cousins - are on vacation in the countryside. Pernette suggests to Marianne, who wants to be appreciated by her cousin Olivier, to make him jealous by inventing an aviator in love. At this announcement, Olivier bursts out laughing, but an airman knocks on their door, his private plane having had a breakdown. The mirage then becomes reality, and thanks to this unexpected visit many feelings will come to light.
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.
The film shows the seizure of power by the Nazis and Hitler wants a trial, at a time when France has just declared war on Germany (Sept. 3, 1939). Hybrid composition, it alternates originals and reconstructions performed by actors (docudrama). A not-so-subtle condemnation of Hitler, Nazism and Germany by the movie's French film makers, which conveniently makes no mention of how the policies of Great Britain and France created Hitler and allowed him to go as far as he did prior to the beginning of the Second World War.
France, 1880. Francois Roquevillard is a respected lawyer in Chambery and the head of a family that prides itself on its impeccable morals. Francois's world rapidly begins to fall apart when his son Maurice elopes to Italy with Edith Frasne, the wife of an esteemed notary.
A time lord of Valois must go to war. He learns by a prophecy that his honor risks being affected. He entrusts his wife to Maxime de Falindor who, despite the temptation, will know how to restore her wife and honor intact.
By taking the defense of Raymond Denis, accused of having killed his mistress, when she committed suicide because he did not want to recognize his child, the lawyer Claude Nogent, learns that he himself was born of unknown father.
Jean is a good man who has a steady job (he is a mechanic in the village garage) and a companion named Aline. But Jean is also a guzzler and a philanderer. As a result, when a local prostitute is killed in the surroundings, he becomes at once the victim of rumor...
