Acting
A famous poet in postwar Paris, scorned by the Left Bank youth, is in love with both his wife Eurydice and a mysterious princess. Seeking inspiration, the poet becomes obsessed and follows the princess from the world of the living to the land of the dead.
During the colonial period in Algeria, Sergeant Bouvard helps Broussole and his two daughters, Alise and Julie, settle in Hassi Ben Okba. Demobilized, he plants vines with them. Seduced by Julie's charms, he nevertheless marries Alise because she owns the land. He protects Julie from all her lovers but cheats on Alise with Adèle, a settler's wife. Unable to bear it any longer, he runs away with Julie to Oran. The death of his father brings him back to Bou-Okba. He stays with Alise until the day when, selling his wine in Oran, he is taken over by his passion. It is Julie who will tell him to resume married life and start a family of settlers.
"La neige Ă©tait sale" is based on a novel and play by the phenomenally prolific Georges Simenon. Upon learning that his mother was a prostitute, Frank (Daniel GĂ©lin) dejectedly vows that he, too, will live a life of debauchery. Part of his self-degradation program is to kill someone, and since the story takes place during the Nazi occupation of France, he chooses a German officer as his victim. His steady descent into psychosis and depravity becomes his ultimate undoing.
Out of love for a beautiful passenger he met on a crossing, journalist Robert Vitrac agrees to deliver a letter to a man named Pablo. A dangerous mission, since the beautiful Manuela has had in her possession the proceeds of a robbery, which she must forward to the fence. In this game, Vitrac would lose his honor and perhaps his life if Inspector Berio's friendship didn't protect him. Manuela, who seemed sincerely in love with the journalist, falls victim to the bandits.
An aimless young man is committed to a psychiatric hospital by his father in an attempt to cure him of his delinquent tendencies.
Pacos Le Maltais, leader of a gang, lays down the law on the quay of Marseille. He fires one of his henchmen, Le Chinois, who killed a woman during the last bank stickup.
LĂ©o Fardier is a police inspector who goes to prison undercover as a convict. He shares a cell with Mariani, a Corsican mafioso, whose trust he earns. The day LĂ©o leaves prison, the criminal entrusts him with a letter to deliver to his estranged wife. He finds her, and she falls under his spell. The problem is that he, too, has fallen in love with her.
Irène is the unhappy wife of a wealthy publisher, Jacques Voisin-Larive, who cares about her no more than a beautiful piece of furniture. Her meeting with Étienne, a young cabinetmaker with whom she falls in love, turns her dismal existence upside down. Not wanting to reveal her condition to her lover, she pretends to be a modest maid, employed by the Voisin-Larive. At the end of a weekend spent with her lover, Irène discovers that she is pregnant. The fragile balance of their existence is suddenly broken. Taking the initiative, she reveals her affair to Jacques and tells him about her desire to divorce. But her husband has no intention of giving her back her freedom...
He was nicknamed Gueule d'ange (Angel's Face) because of his good looks, which enabled him to make a certain amount of money from wealthy ladies. Having given up on touching little Marie, he fell into the clutches of fashionable decorator Loina. Both love money, both go for it. Their characters bind them together. So much so that when Loina falls on hard times, Gueule d'ange would fly to help her. A loyal friend stops him. Loina leaves. Distraught, the handsome boy looks inward. It's time for him to settle down.
In the Charente, during the Nazi occupation, 51-year-old apparent pacifist Edouard Martin is in fact the leader of a resistance network, using his hobby of orchid growing to hide radio equipment.
In Marseille, crime squad captain Dominique fights against racketeers and tries to put a young man back on the right track.
A young intellectual, Hugo, joins the Communist Party out of a sense of idealism, only to see his principles manipulated by party leaders. He is given the assignment of killing Professor Hoederer, a party deviationist. However, he grows to admire the man and begins to have doubts about morals and revolutionary politics. But jealousy - Hugo thinks Hoederer has made love to his wife, Jessica - takes matters out of the political realm.
Film in two eras.1st era: They are not angels. Chronicle of a Free French parachute training camp during the Second World War. 2nd era: Terre de France. A group of paratroopers landed in Brittany sabotages the German installations.
Jo Guardini, now the peaceful owner of a charming inn by the banks of the River Marne, once was a dreaded gangster. The respectful citizen does not want to have anything to do with the underworld any more. Unfortunately, two of his former accomplices kidnap a little girl and decide to hide her in his hotel. What will Jo do : side with the law in the person of inspector Loriot or have a relapse in crime?
A group of policemen look over three murder cases including a cutthroat that prays on young women, a madman that hid his deformed landlord's corpse in the floor, and a wine aficionado who buries his friend alive.
Three sketches that all start in the police station, where LĂ©a, La Pintade and the brigadier himself tell their little stories. The story of Danielle, who bamboozled the impresario Mortimer so well that he made her his wife; the story of the sad little Simon, deprived of a father and unable to stand the mockery of his friends; and the story of the daughter of an ex-convict who - by golly - steals a statue on the day of her First Communion.
A lieutenant, at the head of a commando ready to land in France, finds among his men a maquisard who had tried to kill him in the past.
Michel Thierry is asked by the Second Bureau to go to Provence to help two colleagues, Leroy and Orcado, who are monitoring a gang of arms dealers. As soon as he arrives, Orcado is shot and leaves him an incomprehensible message in which three words are written: Sarah, MĂ©tis, Yerco...
