Catherine Fonteney

The film is a 125-minute, black-and-white biography of French priest and diplomat Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754–1838), who served for 50 years under five different French regimes: the Absolute Monarchy, the Revolution, the Consulate, the Empire, and the Constitutional Monarchy. Its title comes from one of the main historical nicknames for Talleyrand, that he shares with demon king Asmodeus and English poet Lord Byron.

Joe Grant, a light-skinned African American, heads to a small Southern town to investigate the lynching death of his brother. He draws the attention of a gorgeous heiress whom he learns may have been involved in the killing.

The film is biographical, telling the story of the life and artistic struggles of the French composer Hector Berlioz. Berlioz is shown as a recalcitrant medical student in an anatomy class dreaming of becoming a composer; at a demonstration during a performance at the Paris Opéra conducted by Habeneck; at supper with other young artists (Hugo, Janin, Dumas, Mérimée, Delacroix); and chasing after his future wife Harriet Smithson, after a performance of Hamlet. Also depicted are his life in a garret, while suffering from an illness due to an abscess in the throat; a visit from his mother who curses him; and the composition of the Symphonie fantastique. The film then shows his marital breakdown, the premiere of his opera Benvenuto Cellini, his travels throughout Europe, his second marriage to Marie Recio (called "Marie Martin" in the film), public acceptance in old age and reconciliation with his son.

A red-haired boy is his mother's punching bag; only his father's presence is a great comfort to him, but this weak man is under the shrew's thumb. His pain is so great he feels suicidal.

A country girl (Simone Berriau) finds work as a chorus girl in Paris, gets embroiled with a bad egg, and then finds true love with a good-looking milkman.

In 19th-century France, a little girl follows her two sisters into a Carmelite monastery with the goal of becoming a saint.

Bavaria, 1433. Reason of state rules that Prince Albert is to marry Princess Bertha of Wurtemberg. But the fine-looking young man is loath to become the husband of a woman with pimples,flat feet and no breast. Nevertheless, he has to obey his authoritarian father, Duke Ernest, and accompanied by faithful Count Törring, he mounts his steed and sets out for Würtemberg. Stopping in Augsburg, he falls in love with the daughter of a local barber-surgeon, pure and beautiful Agnès Bernauer. The couple is soon secretly married and both take refuge at the castle of Margravine Josepha, Albert's aunt, waiting for Ernest's consent. Unluckily Albert's father will not accept his son's union with a commoner and Albert, supported by Josepha and an army of common people, declares war on the Duke. They seem about to be victorious when Brother Enrique, a monk formerly in the Holy Inquisition, finds a way to reverse the situation: accusing Agnès of witchcraft...

The Marquis de la Seiglière returns to France once the Revolution is over. His possessions, which had been sold as material properties, had been purchased by Stamply, a farmer. The latter restores them to the Marquis, who decides to allocate old Stamply with the use of a corner of his manor. Hélène de la Seiglière, the Marquis's daughter, takes care of the old man. But this one, devastated by death of his son, buried under the ice of the Berezina, dies. Some time later, three persons come to live in the manor: M. de Paubert, his son Raoul, and Destournelles, a crafty, ruthlessly ambitious lawyer. De Paubert hopes to marry his son to Hélène de la Seiglière and might well achieve his aim but for the unexpected return of Bernard Stamply, who has escaped death miraculously. He gets to know Helène and the two young people fall in love with each other.

Everyman Coupeau's attempts to stop drinking are routinely thwarted by the wicked and vengeful Virginie. Based on Zola's novel, Capellani's film is about the free fall of a group of working-class French folk into degradation and tragedy due to carelessness, jealousy, and alcohol abuse. At the time of its release, L'Assommoir was hugely successful.

A cheating bride is caught on photographic film.

Line, Annette's daughter, is about to marry a man she's not in love with. At the engagement party three ghosts revisit their disastrous relationships with Annette and decide to take action to help Line.

Ludivine, a lttle tomboy, takes on the too polite Delphin. Being caught, and punished, she wants him and his father to be dead. When the latter dies, she feels guilty and takes Delphin under her wing.

The young Suzy is a nightclub hostess in a cabaret in which Frehel is the star. Because one night she gets propositions from a rich widower who would like to have her as his girlfriend, Suzy wishes to leave this place, where she has no future, for a better one. Abandoned by her protector, a young hoodlum named Robert, she gets the occasion to get away from it. She decides to go on vacation on the Riviera and stay at the Chateau des Cedres, the former residence of a noble family that has been transformed into a bourgeois guest house by the baroness Saint-Leu. Shy and elegant, in her modest suit, Suzy stays there under the name of Suzanne Michelet and soon makes new friends among the young people of very wealthy families.

Mathias Pascal, saddled with a stupid wife and a nagging mother-in-law, leaves home and is extremely lucky at several gambling resorts. He returns home and discovers that a drowned man, fished out of the river, bears an uncanny likeness to him and is being buried by his family as him. This, to him, is a pleasant turn of events and he goes to Rome, where he falls in love with Louise Paleari. Count Papiano, a jealous suitor of Louise's, threatens him with arrest unless he produces credentials to prove his identity.

The guardian is engaged to a girl from a good family, but the intervention of a gypsy will make his heart lean. This one comes in fact to take revenge and will try to kill him.

Therese, a café owner, mourns the mysterious disappearance of her husband sixteen years earlier. A tramp arrives in the town and she believes him to be her husband. But he is suffering from amnesia and she tries to bring back his memory of earlier times.

During the 1940 exodus, a young girl takes in a baby to whom she becomes deeply attached.

France, July 1782. During her birthday, the beautiful young Marchioness Caroline meets the attractive soldier Gaston. It's love at first sight but Gaston does not wish to make a commitment because a military career waits for him. Caroline marries then a politician but the French Revolution bursts and Caroline has to run away to escape the guillotine. By running away she meets Gaston again who decides to help her.

Since the day their mother Aline remarried, Patrice and Eric, a joyful pair of twins, have been very happy. Indeed, François Chantour, their stepfather, is very kind and behaves like a big brother to them. Even if they are not very rich, the four of them live a cheerful life in their charming house. The trouble is that, in Lyon, the family on the boys'father's side are worried, especially the twins' grandmother, who fears Patrice and Eric are given a bad education. She therefore brings them to her big house in the hope of their improving their manners. A very unfortunate decision indeed.

Sylvie, a rich girl, learns at the same time the death and the ruin of her father. Forced to find work in Paris, she is given shelter by a medical student who soon falls for her. Another young man falls in love with her. When her benefactor gets ill and finally dies, Sylvie refuses to give the other man her heart out of faithfulness for the dearly departed. But youth commands and after a time love -but not oblivion - triumphs.

Rosette is young and charming but she is crippled so she cannot make the most of her life. Which upsets Jules Petitpas, a single inventor, her eccentric but kind-hearted neighbor. Jules pledges to help her by creating a potion that will cure her. Unfortunately he dies before being able to achieve his aim. But a promise is a promise, and the good man comes back to the land of the living as an ... ectoplasm! And he manages to involve a whole tribe of ghosts to assist him in the noble task of saving the young lady. All is well that ends well.

The struggles of a small business owner come to light in this film by director André Cayatte. The proprietor of a fabric shop, M. Baudu faces stiff competition when a department store moves in across the street, the first of its kind in 1860s Paris. On top of the stresses associated with the rival retailer, Baudu’s niece and two nephews take up residence with him after recently being orphaned. The niece, Denise Baudu, sees the writing on the wall for her uncle’s business so she takes a job as a shop girl with his competitor and despite her success the decision does not register well with the family.

Didier Méreuil, affectionately called Poliche, is in love with Rosine, a beautiful girl, so he does everything to please her. She does not love him, and accepts a seductive airplane pilot who proposes to her. One day, she discovers that the funny man is just a front behind which there is a serious Didier. She will try to make up and live with him - but the gap between them is already too large.

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.

In 1914, students living in a boarding house are disturbed by a young woman. On the eve of being called up, one of them declares his love for her. She abandons herself to someone who may not come back.

A scout leader enlists a friend of hers who broke off her engagement because of the young man's ruin. Both try to instill in the young boys entrusted to them a sense of duty and honor.

A young lord who has abandoned his pregnant mistress hires his son, twenty years later, as secretary. He will try to fix his mistake.

Phémie comes to work as a maid in the Chaloupié household. An article and a photograph in the newspaper convince the Chaloupiés that their new servant is in fact none other than Miss Arabella Machefeller, the daughter of the celebrated American millionaire, looking for some worthy people with whom to share her fortune.

Bernard Lefrancois is a prosperous farmer on the River Marne, while his neighbor is impoverished. Lefrancois objects strongly to the romance between his son and the neighbor's daughter, but it continues in secret. WWI begins and the son becomes an aviator with the French army, and the unwed girl presents Lefrancois with an unexpected grandchild. The German army occupies the area, and the girl is serving France as a spy and securing information needed by the French to drive out the Germans. While his son is engaged in air-combat against the Germans, and the unwed mother of his grandchild is serving as a spy against their country's enemy, Lefrancois also joins the battle as a soldier.

The son of two teachers hits the road and becomes a singing success after being taken in as a protege by a kooky countess.

Trouble is started by one of the unfortunate girls, ensconced in a chateau by a generous lady so they can recuperate,but a grandfather and a teacher cause the little drama to be soon forgotten.

Edwige Feuillère and Pierre Richard-Willm star in director Jacques de Baroncelli's adaptation of the Balzac novella The Duchesse de Langeais, which tells the tale of a Parisian socialite who is romantically pursued by a Napoleonic war hero. With a screenplay by Jean Giraudoux.

René, a bank employee, is suspected of theft and fired from his job. It borders on the worst by following in the footsteps of a misfit, Alexandre. A series of circumstances lead him to save little Gérard, the bank manager's grandson, from a fire. The child becomes attached to René, who manages to discover the real culprit of the theft.

A former colonial official lives far from Paris with a dry cousin who pays attention to his heritage. He never took care of his son, married to a singer, even less of his granddaughter Colette. The chances of life mean that the grandfather is obliged to take in Colette for a while. This works wonders, unmasks the cousin conniving with cronies, unravels the intrigues, thwarts the machinations and reconciles all the members of the family.

A man is killed smuggling contraband through the Pyrenees Alps. He leaves behind a pregnant woman who must go on.

Marie, a young bourgeois and Jean, a cargo sailor have an affair, she becomes pregnant but he has to go back to the sea. Marie leaves for Paris where she meets Pierre and marries him. War breaks out, Jean and Pierre will befriend each other on the front.

Daughter of a French officer and an Annamite, Mahlia was brought up in Indochina by Mr. and Mrs. de Roussière. Their son, Henri, would like to marry her but they are against it. Mahlia flees and Henri is killed for trying to protect her. The young girl enters the Mission to raise children there in the love of France.

A gentleman, falsely accused of an assassination, becomes a formidable bandit. Condemned by the king, he will be rehabilitated thanks to the intervention of a young girl whom he will marry.

1824 in Issoudun. A bourgeois, Rouget, lives as a husband and wife, La Rabouilleuse, who holds him in her power. The old man's nephew, ex-Colonel Philippe Bridau of the Imperial Guard, swears to hunt the intruder.

Fabienne believes herself to be cheated on by her husband Claude and divorces her. He leaves for America and does not return until eight years later. He then meets his daughter.

The film is a 125-minute, black-and-white biography of French priest and diplomat Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754–1838), who served for 50 years under five different French regimes: the Absolute Monarchy, the Revolution, the Consulate, the Empire, and the Constitutional Monarchy. Its title comes from one of the main historical nicknames for Talleyrand, that he shares with demon king Asmodeus and English poet Lord Byron.

Edith, a young orphan, is exploited as a waitress and bullied by her adoptive father. But she has a dream: she wants to become a star. One day the Orient Express, which never stops at the little station across the café she works in, is forced to pull up due to a technical incident. And out of a carriage gets ... a company of dancers, who start rehearsing before Edith's amazed eyes. She meets the director of the company, handsome dancing star Harry Belmont, who takes an interest in her beauty and in her natural talent. When she leaves her obnoxious father for Vienna, Harry is absent. She nearly gets seduced by a libidinous man but, after a narrow escape, she gets a job from Treberg, the owner of the restaurant she had dined in. Treberg finds her there, hires her as a dancer and the pair soon meets tremendous success. A star is born but, realizing that he comes second to her, he prefers to vanish.

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

Dr. Claude Moulin leaves his wife and child for a younger woman but the child needs attention and the wife falls very ill.

Gaston Duboutois and Catherine Berton love each other, and are about to play Romeo and Juliet in their small provincial town. The industrialist Duboutois is opposed to his accountant Berton, both of whom are running for parliament. Tempers flare and invective quickly escalates. In the end, Duboutois wins and Berton loses his position. Although futile and foolish, it's the excellent Mme Duboutois who brings peace to the situation, brings about reconciliation and helps the two children to unite.