Lucienne Le Marchand

Pierre Chenal's adaptation of Dostoyevsky's novel, starring Pierre Blanchar and Harry Baur. Bears the influence of German Expressionism and serves as an early forerunner of poetic realism.

Vénus aveugle (Blind Venus) is a 1941 French film melodrama, directed by Abel Gance, and one of the first films to be undertaken in France during the German occupation. Although the film is not set in any specified period, Gance wanted it to be seen as relevant to the contemporary situation in France. He wrote, "...La Vénus aveugle is at the crossroads of reality and legend... The heroine ... gradually sinks deeper and deeper into despair. Only when she has reached the bottom of the abyss does she encounter the smile of Providence that life reserves for those who have faith in it, and she can then go serenely back up the slope towards happiness. If I have been able to show in this film that elevated feelings are the only force that can triumph over Fate, then my efforts will not have been in vain."

Siamese twins, separated at birth, maintain a psychic knowledge of each other's dire fates.

Based on a novel by Maurice Dekobra, the film is set in the Yoshiwara, the red-light district of Tokyo, in the nineteenth century. It depicts a love triangle between a high-class prostitute, a Russian naval officer, and a rickshaw man.

In this family comedy, Papa has no end of trouble getting his young son to accept his new girlfriend.

Reporter renowned photographer, Danièle Gaur is conducting an investigation into the alleged accident of her husband Michel. Her research is gradually leading her to discover the workings of a plot to assassinate US Foreign Secretary John W. Maxwell.

Albert is the irremovable waiter in a small bistro that has just been sold by his former bosses, Angèle and Léon. Angèle, having forgotten the ten million paid by the notary in a cab, prefers to feign madness rather than incur her husband's wrath; but Léon, in turn, eventually learns what has happened to his money, goes mad and kicks out the honest cab driver who comes to return the lost sum. A phone call from the police station later informs Albert that the money is at his boss's disposal; but as the boss is now in an institution, Albert borrows his identity papers and goes to collect the money - which he pays in full to the pari-mutuel betting house. After a series of shocks and counter-shocks, Angèle and Léon regain their senses enough to watch for the outcome of the race, and share with Albert the final winnings, which are very substantial.

Towards the end of the 19th century, the Duke of Gerolstein traveled to Paris. Sixteen years earlier he had a daughter who was taken from him by her mother who was chased out of the palace. After many dramatic adventures, the Duke finds his daughter in the person of Fleur de Marie, martyred throughout her childhood by the Owl and the schoolmaster.

In Marseille, crime squad captain Dominique fights against racketeers and tries to put a young man back on the right track.

Tobie is a hopeless daydreamer. He always has his head in the clouds, and this inevitably gets him into trouble with his employer. In the end, Tobie loses his job as a fairground performer and sinks into a state of abject despair.

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.

Paris, France, 1942, during the Nazi occupation. Robert Klein, a successful art dealer who benefits from the misfortunes of those who are ruthlessly persecuted, discovers by chance that there is another Robert Klein, apparently a Jewish man; someone with whom he could be mistakenly identified, something dangerous in such harsh times.

The film follows a famous scientist who rules over his errant disabled daughter with an iron fist. He's meticulous and tyrannical, while she is impetuous but equally cruel in her own immature way.

A woman becomes distressed by the resemblance between the plot of a film and the reality of her own life. But what is reality: life or film?

In the spring of 1913, Jean Servin, a son of a family, became friends with Roberte, a little midinette. He leaves her a few months later to marry Cécile Breton. The years go by. Jean becomes an important businessman. One evening, he meets Roberte, who has become the wife of a wealthy American. She does not love her husband any more than he loves his wife. They recall their memories. They seem to still love each other. They plan to rebuild their lives. Together, they will spend a few days in Dieppe, as they did in the past after their first meeting. They feel so different from what they were twenty years ago that they understand that the past cannot live again.

The young Paulette is placed by her tutor in a boarding school in Lausanne. It is at the neighboring dance hall, by running away for a short time, that she will find love.

Pierre loves Agnès who prefers Clément, an aviator. Out of desperation, he will commit suicide. Agnès then concludes a pact with him. During the three months that Clément will be absent, Pierre will be able to see her as much as he wants. She thinks that this time will be enough for the young man to realize that she is not the ideal woman for him.

Sentenced to 20 years after killing a colleague for revealing that his wife was unfaithful, Sourdier escapes hoping to kill the woman as well.He learns she was true to him and has had a little girl who thinks the father is dead.

A man who has just deposited a will with a notary is run over by a car. As his overcoat bears the name and address of Emile Blondin on a label, the police go there and discover that the dead man is not Emile Blondin. But this one is soon discovered murdered. The police then became interested in Georges Blondin, the victim's brother, whose goddaughter, Juliette, was also the notary's secretary.

Jacques Audoin falls in love with a pianist, Evelyne Clery, and marries her. In reality, he had wanted to approach her, because he imagined that she had witnessed the murder of the lover of his first wife. Evelyne learns what has happened and, revolted by what she thinks is her husband's plot, commits suicide. Jacques confesses his crime.

After a banker is driven to suicide by his wife's reckless spending, an innocent cashier is wrongly implicated in a crime.

Marc, a photographer, works out of love to help Dany, a car thief, to get back on the right track: he offers her to work with him, as a model. But the former accomplices of the young woman compromise this action.

Théodora, Thierry de Villiers' governess, has the leisure of scrambling the cards: She combines the meeting in the same apartment of Thierry, his friend Octave, Brigitte, his wife, and Nicole, Villiers' secretary. Finally, Theodora will be sent back to the asylum from which she had run away.

Madame Guérin, who has been suffering from cancer, benefits from a period of remission and she tries to regain health at any price. That is why she decides to consult a healer. But when her friend, also affected by cancer, is saved by an operation, she hesitates between traditional and parallel medicine.

As the red headed boy writes in his school book, a family is a group living under the same roof who can't stand each other.

Unfairly accused of her husband's murder, a woman is imprisoned.

Good King Pausole selects a wife for every day in the year, but one protests when he spends her day searching for young Princess Aline who has eloped with Giglio, a visiting airman stranded in the kingdom. Giglio comes from a modern and different world and this gives Queen for a Day some ideas about how to make her title a lasting one.

Song of Farewell

Four noble ladies, four widows, live in isolation in a Berry ch teau. There's the Mme de Bussange, her two sisters Sylvie and Hélène, her sister-in-law Elisabeth and her little boy, who alone will pass on the family name. Two men come along: Gilbert and René, bringing trouble and confusion. Gilbert courts Hélène, while René becomes attached to Elisabeth. Relations between the widows become strained and heated, until an attempt is made on Elisabeth's life. The culprit, Sylvie, kills herself. In despair, Mme de Bussange sets fire to the castle and dies in the inferno.