Maryse Paillet

Le Havre, France, in 1949. In a town that still shows the scars of war, several friends meet up in Albert's café. One of them, Laurent, has lost his job on the docks and his marriage to Madeleine is falling apart. He knows that his wife wants to start an affair with friend, Jean Sauviot. Jean is a lonely man who is attracted to Madeleine but doesn't want to commit himself to the wife of a friend. On the day that Madeleine tells her husband that she is seeing Jean, Laurent goes looking for Jean to find an explanation. Arriving on the docks in the evening, he attacks an American sailor who looks like Jean, but the man fights back and runs away after killing Laurent accidentally. Madeleine thinks that Laurent was killed by Jean and believes that she can start a new life with her lover. The police have other ideas...

Montmartre in the summertime. A group of street urchins idles outside while the other kids of the neighborhood are away on holiday.To keep the gang busy, Pivolo, their leader, has an idea : they are going to kidnap Aunt Faguet's doggy. Just for the fun of it. A few days pass after the crime is accomplished and one of them suddenly realizes that a reward is being offered by the aunt to anyone who would bring her her pet back. Mademoiselle Hélène, the kind-hearted social worker, does it for them and gives them the reward money, which is instantly exchanged for lollipops, nougat and merry-go-round and cinema tickets. So, why not continue? That's what they do, abducting several dogs, until they realize they are becoming ... too rich! They can't buy themselves luxurious gifts or else their parents are bound to suspect something. Instead, they decide to do good by helping poor people around them. One day, Pierrot, a member of the gang, gets run down by a cyclist and becomes blind.

Elsa Lundenstein is accused of having murdered her lover. The jury discusses the case vividly. All members are somehow prejudiced because of personal life experience and subsequently each member reads something different into the presented facts.

A tough customs man, out to get a youth smuggling tobacco into France across the Belgium border, falls for the jaded ex bar hostess the smuggler lives with.Meanwhile the young man is intrigued by another, more innocent girl.

Fates of multiple otherwise disconnected characters intertwine miraculously under the sky of Paris. And it all happens in one day.

The short stories of Guy de Maupassant enjoyed a renaissance in the early 1950s, thanks in great part to the Max Ophuls production Le Plaisir. In Trois Femmes, three De Maupassant stories are dramatized, each conveying the central theme of women falling in love. In the first, a black female carnival entertainer causes an uproar when she falls in love with a white soldier. In the second, a young bride is pressured into having a baby to collect a huge inheritance. And in the final episode, a pregnant girl is "adopted" and protected by a small circle of friends. In standard De Maupassant fashion, each of the three stories in Trois Femmes is capped by a surprise twist.

Anthology film with three shorts each featuring a famous detective: Monsieur Wens, Lemmy Caution and Maigret.

Malou, a prostitute from Montmartre, and her pimp, have found a well laid scheme : whenever she (or he) wants to get rid of a lover, she announces to him in a tearful voice that she is pregnant. The reaction of the fall guy-is invariable: he gives her compensation money and disappears. But there is always an exception to the rule. And, as it happens, the exception is a widowed insurer, Monsieur Archibald. Indeed when he is told by Malou that he is going to be a father, he is...elated!

Two unlikely companions must smuggle four suitcases filled with contraband pork across Nazi-occupied Paris.

In the Mouffetard district of Paris, Jérôme Crainquebille, an affable four-season merchant, is stopped by a police officer and taken to the station, unjustly accused of shouting "Mort aux vaches!" ("Death to the cows!"). When he returns to work after a fortnight's detention, he is ostracized by his neighbors. Lonely, Crainquebille sank into despair and alcoholism. His life in prison seemed sweeter, and his attempts to return were in vain. He owes his salvation to the affection of a local kid.

In the 1953 elections, Piédalu was elected mayor of Marboue-Chambourcy. The esteem of his fellow citizens won him popularity, but he had to reckon with the wiles of his political opponents if he ran for deputy. The support of the son of one of his rivals, who loves Françoise Piédalu, and above all his stubborn common sense and natural malice, help him to overcome all obstacles.

An old Montmartre building with countless tenants: on the seventh floor, a Russian painter, Igor, lives in his art and dreams, whose paintings express kindness and indulgence; two floors below, a poor cabaret singer, Seraphita, poses for her neighbor when she feels too lonely and abandoned; further down, the Prunelle family lives, where the father and mother, inveterate drunks, indulge in drink and give their eleven-year-old son. Tique, who seems to have become indifferent, the spectacle of atrocious domestic scenes. By the time the film begins, Father Prunelle, drunker than ever, has chased Tique's mother away with insults...

A well-to-do bourgeois, Tartarin lives in Tarascon, a small southern town, among friends who, like him, love hunting "à la casquette", gossip, aperitifs and thought-provoking journeys. Imaginative like all his compatriots, Tartarin ended up believing he had once been to Shanghai, so fervently did he recount his illusory adventures. It was even rumored that Tartarin was about to leave for Africa to hunt wild beasts, and this was so insistent that the brave man, urged on by his friends, was forced "for the sake of honor" to embark. He arrives in Casablanca, surprised to discover a modern city and not a single lion. But a charming Moorish woman, Baïa, seduces him, and Tartarin indulges in the "delights of Capua". This euphoria is short-lived: Baïa disappears, a false prince, mostly a swindler, finds a replacement and sets off on a hunting expedition in southern Morocco, which will only earn Tartarin the loss of his savings and a blind old lion dragged along by two beggars.

Smuggler's Ball is the English-language title for this French-Belgian seriocomedy. The action takes place along the borders separating Belgium, Holland and France. It is here that the worldly Pierre (J. P. Kieran) carries on a profitable smuggling operation, all the while romancing Siska (Christian Lenier), the daughter of a local customs official. Various subplots and secondary characters weave in and out as the plotline guides the viewer through the WW II years. Towards the end, the story shifts gears when the Benelux Frontier Agreement eliminates all government regulations. The film's screenplay is by Charles Spaak, himself the descendant of a Belgian political family, and thus well-versed in bureaucracy and red tape.

Jean Nerac completes his medical studies, sure of a successful career, but less sure of his attempts with fellow student Marianne, who refuses to accept him. Nerac leaves for the Auvergne. An old doctor will soon die, but replacing him will be difficult, as one of Jean's colleagues has failed. However, with patience, skill, modesty and friendship, Jean Nerac overcame the mistrust of his patients. He settled in these austere mountains, and Marianne, convinced of the young man's worth, helped him with her presence.

A Parisian reporter tries to exonerate a fugitive neighbor of charges he murdered his wife.