Acting
Originally titled Nous Sommes Tout des Assassins, We Are All Murderers was directed by Andre Cayette, a former lawyer who detested France's execution system. Charles Spaak's screenplay makes no attempt to launder the four principal characters (Marcel Mouloudji, Raymond Pellegrin, Antoinine Balpetre, Julien Verdeir): never mind the motivations, these are all hardened murderers. Still, the film condemns the sadistic ritual through which these four men are brought to the guillotine. In France, the policy is to never tell the condemned man when the execution will occur--and then to show up without warning and drag the victim kicking and screaming to his doom, without any opportunity to make peace with himself or his Maker. By the end of this harrowing film, the audience feels as dehumanized as the four "protagonists." We Are All Murderers was roundly roasted by the French law enforcement establishment, but it won a special jury prize at the 1952 Cannes Film Festival.
VĂ©ronique Lanier runs one of the most highly rated haute couture houses in Paris. Her first partner is her husband Pierre, who has left aside a promising artist career to design the styles which make their firm a success. The trouble is that VĂ©ronique lives only for her job and does not allow herself -and her husband for that matter - a moment's respite. In Cannes, Pierre meets Wanda, a young singer with strange, fascinating eyes. The frustrated husband falls for her but gradually realizes that the light mercurial creature cannot possibly fulfill him. VĂ©ronique, feeling miserable, understands she is on the wrong track. She promises Pierre that she will make efforts to reconcile work and married life. VĂ©ronique and Pierre will live and work together again, each one forgiving the other for their faults.
During the Rif War, a lieutenant commands a torpedo boat. He finds in an abandoned yacht, a beautiful portrait of a woman, and soon meets this one who is married to a brutal and jealous baron.
Militis, a sailor, returns to a bar where he finds Sarah, the girl he once loved and is still attracted to. However, he is now married to an exotic woman who took care of him during an illness.
In order to please Martineau, a wealthy industrialist, cynical Gabory accepts to organize a rigged beauty contest whose winner will be Françoise, Martineau's young mistress. However, there are other comely contestants among whom Christiane, the daughter of a general, Jackie, an unemployed actress, Colette, the daughter of a distiller and Marie, a secretary engaged to serious-minded construction foreman Robert. So, will things turn out exactly the way Martineau and Gabory want them...?
An American star, visiting Paris, falls asleep in the Louvre while a guide comments on Watteau's "Voyage à Cythère". She dreams that the painting's characters, beautiful ladies, escape, scattering across Paris after a tour of the fashion houses.
A beautiful and sophisticated teenager is placed in a regimented French girls' boarding school after her father apparently commits suicide over a business scandal. She immediately gains admirers -- a lustful middle-aged artist, a handsome young composer, a fellow female student -- as well as a jealous rival. With the help of her schoolmates, she attempts to elope with the composer, but the adults catch on to the plot, and she is locked into her room at night.
Angelo, a glass-blower from Murano, and Georgia Maglia, the pretty daughter of a fallen fascist magistrate, are chosen to be the stand-ins for the stars of a film version of "Romeo and Juliet" being shot on location in Venice and Verona. It is not long before they fall in love and their romance parallels that of Shakespeare's timeless heroes. Indeed their union is threatened by the schemings of Raffaele, the Maglia family's dubious tout...
Maurice loves Juliet and Michael loves Lily. Romance blossoms on the hill. They are workers, artisans, and Lily has a real talent as a singer. But Claude's arrival brings trouble to their relationships. Maurice, jealous, approaches Lily. Singing in the streets, Lily quickly becomes a cabaret star.
A man, after a fight, believes he has killed his cousin, and hides the body. The dead man had only passed out, but when he regained consciousness, he became amnesiac. When she sees him again, the woman who loved him takes him for a ghost.
Endive-Meunier, a prosperous silk dealer from Lyon has an affair with his secretary he tries hard to keep secret. One day, he nevertheless accepts to accompany her to the seaside resort of Coeur-sur-Mer. Unfortunately for him, once there, he finds himself in the presence of Claudius Paquito, the popular barman of a fashionable club. The trouble is that the man is no other than one of his former employees he once fired for insolence...
During the Occupation, a boarding school in Moulins was placed under the rule of a headmistress committed to collaboration. It is within these walls that Michel, Arthur and Franck, escaped prisoners seeking to cross the demarcation line, find themselves stranded. Three boarders, Manouche, Jo and La Tigresse, discreetly devote themselves to them. Until the day when, aware of the danger, they alert the Resistance through the intermediary of a warden. The three men cross into the free zone, and Michel promises to find Manouche.
Christian has just returned home after failing his A-levels. His father, incensed by his failure, asks a neighboring teacher to give him lessons. But Christian falls for Simone, the teacher's cousin. Jealous, Christian's girlfriend Bichette arranges for the father and the teacher to learn everything. Christian is sent away and reunited with Françoise, the house's pretty maid, who had been dismissed. Bichette has had it.
François wants to buy a house to help underprivileged children. He lacks money, but a generous donor allows him to realize this dream.
In L'Alpe d'Huez, Élisabeth falls in love with Christian, who refuses to marry her, claiming that marriage is a crime against love. When she finds him in the company of another woman, Élisabeth breaks up with the young man. Later, she meets him again and becomes pregnant.
The tribulations of a banknote, from its exit from a counter to its destruction, passing through dozens of hands.
Based on true facts, a news item which was widely talked about in the nineteenth century, this is the story of a wife who might have poisoned her husband .
A young French woman travels to South America for a job offer and ends up a prisoner in a slave camp for women by a sadistic gangster.
In Bourganeuf, an old maid, Charlotte Bourdier, confesses to Marie Chassagne that she has forged a sentimental intrigue by correspondence with the presenter of the Radio Circus, Zappy Max. Marie agrees to meet him when he comes, but she in turn falls in love with him, who confesses his love to her.
A young girl has left her family and lives as best she can on the generosity of her lovers. A naval officer introduces her to Toulon in a special environment which provides companions to sailors on leave. After some setbacks, she finds love and protection with a doctor who marries her.
