Robert Pizani

The history of one of France's most famous streets is retold, featuring multiple performances from Guitry himself.

In Les Halles, in the heart of Paris, the restaurateur André Chatelin, leads an uneventful life until the arrival from Marseille of Catherine, the daughter of his ex-wife Gabrielle. She tells him her mother is dead and that she is without resources. Chatelin welcomes her under his roof - then marries her. Gérard, a young student that Chatelin looks upon as a son, becomes Catherine's lover, and she sets him at odds with Chatelin. She asks him to kill the restaurateur. He refuses. She kills him. Having discovered that Gabrielle is still alive, declined and drug addicted, Chatelin realises the darkness of Catherine's soul who has always lied to him.

In the early 1950s, the popular radio show "La Kermesse aux Étoiles", hosted by the famous Jean Nohain, mixing lottery games and performances of various artists, will be disrupted by the adventures of a man and his fiancée seeking to recover a dangerous bottle of perfume (explosive) which was unfortunately mixed with the prizes to be won ...

A brave bookseller raises his four daughters alone, all of whom he employs in his shop. They are especially interested in their sentimental stories. Rosine, the youngest, falls in love with Francis, fiancé of Edith, the eldest. But Francis pushes her away and Rosine announces that she is going to commit suicide. Bertrand, a young doctor, decides to stop her by watching over her. After a few adventures, everything finally works out. Edith keeps her fiancé, the father, from whom the adventure has been hidden, returns to the usual course of his life and Bertrand and Rosine find themselves alone.

Jeune Filles en Detresse (Young Girls in Distress) was director G. W. Pabst's last French production before his (ill-timed) return to Nazi-occupied Austria in 1941. Somewhat reminiscent of Maedchen in Uniform, the story is set in a private girl's school, populated almost exclusively by children from broken homes. Among the few students who can claim family stability is Micheline Presle, but even her happiness is threatened when her lawyer father Andre Luguet inaugurates an affair with stage actress Jacqueline Debulac. With the help of Debulac's daughter Louisa Carletti, Presle is able to break up her father's romance and deliver him into the open arms of her mother Marcelle Chantal. On the whole, the performance by the younger cast members are more convincing than those rendered by the film's so-called adults.

In pre-World Ward I in Paris, a budding artist, Pierre LeBlanc, falls in love and marries Janine, a dressmaker's assistant. Pierre has a flair for designing clothes, and he and his bride live in a blissful paradise, until the war breaks out and he becomes a soldier. Janine dies in childbirth and, no longer desiring to live, Pierre volunteers for a dangerous patrol behind German lines. While recuperating in the hospital from a wound he received on the mission, Pierre spends his time drawing sketches of dresses. He becomes rich and famous after the war. Years later, after devoting himself to his daughter, Pierre seeks a marriage with a girl no older than his daughter. A conflict develops and to ensure his daughter's happiness, Pierre sacrifices his own plans.

Just as she is about to marry Jules, Nénette realizes that an adventuress has borrowed her identity in order to marry Hubert de Mont-Vermeil. But at the same time, a cardinal arrives, and the truth must be kept from him. Nénette passes for Hubert's wife, and the cardinal spends his time reconciling the pseudo-spouses. After many misunderstandings, Hubert and Nénette discover that they love each other, while Jules marries the pretty soubrette, not without first inoculating Hubert's virtuous aunt with his taste for racing.

To escape his female fans, Carlos Cortez makes for the Riviera. Along the way, he picks up a hitchhiker named Annabel who invites him to go camping with her friends. Living under his real name, the incognito star wins new friends. But a theft complicates things. Fortunately, Annabel is still around and Jacques can do no better than to marry her.

Roberto, a 10-year-old boy, is drawn to music. An old organist discovers his gifts, and begins his musical education which will lead him to the head of an orchestra.

A public prosecutor wants his son to marry an ugly girl(who has a squint) because her mom is very rich.But it's too late for the boy has already fallen in love with another girl who is pregnant by him.Angry dad is to stop his shameless son's allowance .Enter exuberant Betty Brown ,with a delightful slight English accent and lots of joy of life .The old man realizes then that life is passing him by .Is it too late for him to find happiness?

Sénéchal, an actor touring the provinces with the "Tournées Carlini" does not meet the success he thinks he deserves. One night in Dreux, he finds himself without his luggage and dressed up as a Foreign Legion officer, he is invited to a party thrown by a colonel. He creates a sensation there and does not leave the colonel's wife ... indifferent! Back in Paris, Sénéchal goes through a similar experience. This time around, wearing tuxedo and top hat, he gets mistaken for a diplomat and charms the guests of a wedding party. Arrested by the police, he chooses to do without an attorney at his trial and his brilliant eloquence has him acquitted. A question remains unanswered though : will all those people who give an ovation in real life ever go to see him on stage ?

Little Germaine Valcour, an adulterine child, is abandoned and taken in by a showman, Father Ballot. She becomes the consolation of the good man whose daughter has gone wrong. Madame Vaulcour died of grief while her lover, after many bad blows, takes justice into his own hands. The girl stays with her adoptive parents.

The scene of action embraces Tangier, Toulon and the Mediterranean, where Pierre Fresnay, Rolf Wanka and Kim Peacock, cast as captains of French, German and English boats, respectively, unite to rescue the passengers of a neutral boat that is about to be engulfed in a cloud of poison smoke released by a smuggling ship.

A friendly young man is accused by a Romanichel of being part of a fearsome band of thieves who are looting the lobster traps of a small Breton village.

A valuable painting has been stolen from an art gallery in Paris.. On a train travelling between Paris and Rome, Zutra, a mysterious and sinister character, tries to find the stolen painting.

Petite bonne sérieuse

Around 1750, in the Dauphiné not far from the Swiss border, a cooper, tired of the injustices affecting the peasants crushed by taxes, went into revolt. Louis Mandrin, a handsome fellow without fear and without reproach, puts himself out of the law by refusing to obey the local nobility. The public authorities are tearing their hair out because the man is elusive. Helped by his faithful friends and by two women in love, Mandrin will become a legend.

The spoiled daughter of the French Ambassador tricks one of his aides into marrying her.

A modest taylor the women found irresistible inherit a Maison de couture in financial difficulty. Decided to save it he prepare a great collection. But when his wife discovered his relations with one of the mannequin, how would he prevent the scandale without loosing... both of them?!

During a singles meal, the phone rings. A woman claims a man, Jean-Louis. As a joke, the master of the house replies that he is gone forever and advises him to take the plunge. But she obeys and the suicide appears in the newspapers. Tested, the master of the house takes in the child of the unfortunate woman.

The aunt of Alfred Puc, a meek tax-collector in Paris, dies while riding in a moving van. The driver, not wishing to be bothered by a police interrogation, hides her corpse in a cupboard before notifying Alfred. But the van is stolen. Alfred, being the heir of a rich lady, begins a frantic search to locate the missing van and the cupboard because one can't claim an inheritance if there is no 'corpus delecti.' In his search, he gets caught up in an underworld web and finds the body of a murdered gangster in his room. He finally locates the cupboard but promptly loses it again. But, wait, it isn't "finis' time, yet.

Une nuit au paradis

On New Year's Eve 1899, Soledad is peddling violets in a Madrid busy street when she meets aristocrat Fernando. The couple falls in love but their different social backgrounds threatens the relationship. Fernando is under constant pressure from his older brother Alfonso who reminds him of his duties including his engagement to Magdalena, a countess. Disregarding all social conventions and scandalizing high society, Fernando sets up Soledad in a plush apartment and announces their marriage plans.

Two ambitious parents decide to change their name for a foreign patronymic so that their young son Edmond can win fame easier. He's a eleven-year-old orchestra conductor.

An average worker who feels downtrodden at work and home, dreams of becoming a dictator. His aunt has her own fantasy that the love-of-her-life, a fairground magician, will return to her once more.

During a stopover in Aden, a charming actress is kidnapped by an Arab prince.

La grande amie

Remember when Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music says "Every time God closes a door, He opens a window?" Well, this is basically the same philosophy followed by a sage authority named Professor Azais. Though he is never seen in the film, Azais's influences dictates every move made by Le Baron Wurtz (Max Dearly), a private tutor. Though he suffers quite a few setbacks, Wurtz presses on, armed by the Azaiz philosophy that every time something goes wrong in one part of the world, it is balanced by something going right elsewhere. This "law of compensations" pays off in big laughs for the audience, and in a happy-ever-after for Wurtz. Azais was based on a play by Georges Berr and Rene Verneuil.

My aunt from Honfleur

The bat

Italy, 1736. Count Raniero, brother of Maria, refuses that Pergolese, a modest composer, marry his sister. Pergolese and Maria leave clandestinely. But Raniero finds them and locks Maria up in the castle while Pergolese dies in the convent that took him in.

A prudish man becomes, by inheritance, owner of the Bal Tabarin which, according to the testamentary provisions, he must manage himself. He launches himself happily into this life of pleasures and hides it from his family.

The daughter of the austere professor Smithson, during a walk on skis, loses her balance, revealing her underwear. An indiscreet photographed the scene. Smithson demands that his daughter marry this man, but who is he? He luckily turns out to be the young man she loves.

One weekend an office worker is stuck with five million francs that he is temporarily unable to deposit, so he pretends to be a rich man.A woman takes that opportunity to seduce him, while a gang of crooks seeks to fleece him.

A record seller, and not very serious, Henry spends his nights in a cabaret where there is a Slavic prince in exile. His resemblance to the Prince of Palestria makes him designated to replace the young man who prefers to stay in Paris. And Henry takes with him the one he loves.

Two horsemen are inseparable. One is smart and the other clumsy. A young girl is engaged to the clumsy but she falls in love with the smart one.

Argan, the imaginary patient, allows himself to be led by his wife and his doctors who take advantage of his weakness. Only his daughter has sincere love for him. He ends up accepting that she should marry the one she loves and not the benet, son of an apothecary, whom he intended for her.

The tribulations of a banknote, from its exit from a counter to its destruction, passing through dozens of hands.

In Pisa, chance forces an old bookseller out of his isolation. He unleashes the fury of the tenants of his building, he undergoes the rigors of the law and he is involved in the adventure of two lovers whose marriage he arranges.

Lina Bourget, a realist singer, is forced to leave Dakar because of a murder she believes she has committed. Taking refuge in Paris, she unexpectedly becomes a star in the capital.

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.

A mother of three escapes the death sentence during her poisoning trial. After spending ten years in prison, she finds her children and rebuilds her family.

A young unemployed girl pretends to be a boy and gets a job as a car washer.

Believing that her husband is cheating on her, Jacqueline decides to take revenge and goes to find Ernest, a chilled sigh. But in her bachelor apartment, she cannot decide to push her revenge to the end.

Hercule, a young peasant, inherits a Parisian newspaper with a large circulation. The editor-in-chief, Vasco, takes advantage of his ignorance to make corruption prevail. But Hercules gradually realizes the role that we make him play.

This murder mystery is set in a Parisian cafe and examines the mysterious murder of a famed journalist and extortionist who is killed at his table in the cafe. Though the prime suspects are gathered together( including his wife and her lover, the gun-runner, the creditor, and a playboy) and all of them have motives, none of them did it. So whodunit?

1938, France, Paris, at the Superior Conservatory of Dramatic Art ("Conservatoire Supérieur d'Art Dramatique"). The first-year entrance exams are in full swing. Many applicants, few accepted. Isabelle (Janine Darcey) is one of the few chosen. She joins former students from the second and third years, including François (Claude Dauphin) and Cécilia (Odette Joyeux). They attend the drama class run by Professor Lambertin (Louis Jouvet). The young people, passionate and eager to become comedians, clash in tumultuous love affairs, because by dint of acting, they imagine that life is a farce. François, for example, is in love with Isabelle, who also loves him, but is pursued by Cecilia, his former mistress... "Put art in your life and life in your art!"

Two young revelers, driven by a Russian driver, are taken to an unknown neighborhood at the gates of a cafecinema where they are going to attend a screening of 1909. They see Douglas Fairbanks, Max Linder, William Hart, Prince Rigadin, Norma Talmadge , Lya de Putti...

The film depicts events between the Fashoda crisis in 1898 and the 1904 signing of the Entente Cordiale creating an alliance between Britain and France and ending their historic rivalry. It was based on the book King Edward VII and His Times by André Maurois. It was made with an eye to its propaganda value, following the Munich Agreement of September 1938 and in anticipation of the outbreak of a Second World War which would test the bonds between Britain and France in a conflict with Nazi Germany.

A painter who has led a free and independent life meets true love. A jealous former lover intervenes to prevent her from being happy and succeeds in driving away the one she loves. The young woman regains a taste for life thanks to her work and her friends.

Two modest young employees, Jean and Madeleine, dream of leading the way, but the experience turns out badly. Madeleine marries a German aristocrat who turns out to be a spy, and finds Jean who had joined the Legion.

The belated and revolting passion of a famous surgeon for a young orphan whom he once took in. He goes so far as to dishonor her to prevent her marriage to a young man she loves, whom she will however end up marrying. The young girl herself is not without reproach; she has missed a mother's love: in this ordeal, she has no sense of feminine dignity.

A sporty and chivalrous young man creates, with some comrades, a society whose goal is to protect honest people against rogues. He finds himself thrown into unforeseen adventures, at the end of which he will discover love.

Nicole tries to seduce a young man who lead a bohemian life in an untidy flat with his three pals.

In a Far Eastern town, a settling of accounts between Western and Asian opium traffickers draws the attention of the police.

Emile is a French film producer at the beginning of the century. One of his friends leaves his daughter Lucette in his house, when he is starting a tour through France. Emile falls in love with her. Problems starts when his younger friend Jacques come back from military service and after complaining his misfortune with women, follows Emile's advice in starting affairs with women and he meets Lucette.

Martine is a lonely girl in an exclusive boarding school who conjures up a glamorous existence in order to make her dull life tolerable and to impress the other girls. One of her flights of fancy is a love affair with Brevannes, a famous composer. She leaves the school and goes to the French Alps to find the life she's only dreamed about, where she meets Brevannes and a December-May romance develops until she meets a young mountain guide, Henri Vidal.

Around 1750, in the Dauphiné not far from the Swiss border, a cooper, tired of the injustices affecting the peasants crushed by taxes, went into revolt. Louis Mandrin, a handsome fellow without fear and without reproach, puts himself out of the law by refusing to obey the local nobility. The public authorities are tearing their hair out because the man is elusive. Helped by his faithful friends and by two women in love, Mandrin will become a legend.

The tour of a theatrical troupe is disturbed by the waltz-hesitation love of the young actress Stepha between the young first and the director.

Chatelard, one of Viscount de Kerlec's guests, has died in mysterious conditions. The police initiates an investigation and sends detective-inspector Pauc to de Kerlec's manor. Pauc decides to mingle with the viscount's guests , who are all likely to have committed the murder. Among them, there is Jacques Mauclerc, a naval officer, and a seedy character named Bartoli, in fact a spy in search of secret documents. Pauc will end up untangling the web during a dramatic séance.

At the Vélodrome d'Hiver, at the height of the sports competitions, the director of the house is found murdered. We also stole the recipe for the show. A swarm of private detectives, second-hand sleuths, embark on the most diverse tracks. Arrests pile up and the chase continues amid the non-stop games. The culprit will however be caught, red-handed, by a young inspector wearing a handsome mask.

When he finds a package in the metro, given this period of restrictions, Mr. Truche thinks it may be a good deal, he takes it home but discovers a woman's head inside. A friend of Mr. Truche having just disappeared, the superintendent accuses her of having murdered her and discovers the head buried in his cellar. But the girlfriend, whom Mr. Truche loves platonically, returns from the countryside and at the same time we spot the assassin of the unknown woman.

Zoé, a pretty penniless girl, decides on the advice of her neighbor to embark on gallantry. After a brief failure, she meets a young boy, Jacques Lebreton who is about to get married. After causing the failure of this arranged marriage, she will have to play the role of wife of Jacques with his family, until the arrival of the uncle from America.

Colette gives up her studies to become a cabaret dancer. She breaks with her fiance who does not approve of her choice.

A young woman has a perilous affair with a General from the opposing side during the Revolutionary war.

T'amerò sempre

A ruined Baron Philippe de baron, meets one day a troupe of traveling actors led by Herod. Attracted by the one who plays the role of the ingenue: Isabella, and by the dynamism and enthusiasm of his companions, he takes the place of the deceased poet of the troupe. And during performances, Philippe became the captain Sunder. For his part, Isabelle loves Philip, but does not consider marriage, nobility him missing, she refuses to harm the career of Baron. And one day, the Duke of Vallombrosa, seduced by Isabella, finds himself challenged to a duel by Philippe for touching the girl. Defeated, he launched his men against Sunder, then removes Isabelle. The actors throw themselves then to storm the castle where she is being held. This time Vallombrosa was seriously injured, and the duke's own father, rushed to the scene, Isabelle discovers the girl he had once been an actress. Nothing stands now the union of Sunder and Isabella, under the tender gaze of the actors Herod and Scapin.

The story of the seven pearls of the English Crown, from Henry VIII to 1937 – three of them missing.

As he explains to the journalist who came to interview him, Honoré cultivates, as a perfect Marseillais, farnienté and galéjade. He evokes the Phocaean Protis, who founded the city of Marseille, and the Roman Honorius, who invented pétanque. He loves to go fishing with his friends Garrigue and Watermelon to prepare a good bouillabaisse, and even more, to rig the results of a vote to allow a little protégée to be crowned Miss flots bleus.

A penniless adventurer, Eddie Morgan survives on his wits and good humor. He's a bluffer. To help the owner of an oil field, he launches a vast investment campaign, with the help of a few friends, to benefit the French people. A rival group, led by Serge Colonna and Dominique Ardan, tried to buy the land from him, because according to an expert, there was no oil to exploit. But the expert had lied, and Colonna had just signed the purchase contract. Eddie, with the help of Dominique, whom he has seduced in the meantime, snatches the famous paper from Colonna's hands. The oil can flow.

A GI on furlough attends a Folies-Bergères show. He falls in love with a dancer, Claudie, the star of the theater.

On this beautiful May 1st, Thérèse is about to give birth. Their presence at home is undesirable, so Jean, her husband, decides to take François, their little boy, to a soccer match. Their plans change when they meet a former factory mate who seems to have made a success of his life. This man, Blanchot, decides to return to Jean a sum of money he had once borrowed. Trusted, Jean is drawn into a clandestine circle, where his apparent luck delivers him without ulterior motive to Blanchot, who is one of the ringleaders. The police interrupt the dangerous game, putting Jean, who has no identity papers, in an awkward situation.

A young boy is hired as a lift attendant in a grand hotel when his mother dies. To fulfill his dream, he takes part in a competition organized by the manager, and wins 1st prize: a two-day stay in one of the princely suites. He wants to share the experience with his young girlfriend, the florist, but discovers that she has betrayed him and returns to her elevator.