Nicole Martel

A hawker, pursued by the law, finds refuge in a garage and finds there a former comrade who has become a mechanic. As he looks like a car driver, he finds himself forced to sit behind the wheel of a car to participate in a race, but not knowing how to drive, he finds himself dead last.

Fabrège is a ladies' man. His friend Pascal, at the circle, evokes these conquests, among others Denise Lamblin for whom he fought a duel and this other woman for whom he stayed an entire night, in the pouring rain, under his windows. While the next day they have to take the train together, at the sight of a female figure on the station platform, Fabrège changes trains and sets out to conquer the beautiful stranger. Arrived in Cannes, they go down to the Miramar hotel and their idyll begins.

Based on a play by Pierre Wolff, about a wronged husband’s revenge on his wife and her lover, La belle de nuit is a major find, a work of uninhibited stylistic imagination that ranges from Sirkian stylization (an elaborate play of mirrors and doubles) to brutal realism (a tour of the bordellos of Marseille suggests the contemporary photographs of Brassaï).

The notary Tremplin wants to give his daughter to the young rich farmer Adhemar. He goes with both of them to Paris where Henriette meets a sleazy car salesman who is precisely the rich heir sought by her father.