Arthur Devère

Three stories about the pleasure. The first one is about a man hiding his age behind a mask to keep going to balls and fancying women - pleasure and youth. Then comes the long tale of Mme Tellier taking her girls (whores) to the country for attending her niece's communion - pleasure and purity. And lastly, Jean the painter falling in love with his model - pleasure and death.

Cattion d'Urville takes in a gypsy, Sarah, and her granddaughter Miarka, in an outbuilding of her chateau. Miarka, while growing up, attracts the attention of Luigi, Cattion's nephew who, little by little, falls in love with her. Sarah raised her daughter in the tradition of gypsies who curse anyone who marries a man who is not a gypsy. Miarka ends up loving Luigi and he wants to marry her. The law of race opposes it. Fortunately, a well-conducted genealogical investigation will discover that Luigi is of the gypsy race. They will marry.

The daughter of a Brussels restaurant proprietor prefers the company of a young man from Paris, to that of her compatriots.

Two hitch-hikers are on the way to Marseilles pursued by her husband.

On the advice of his impressario, the singer André Soral resumes his former job as a sailor. He falls in love with Pola, the daughter of the owner of the barge, whom he marries after many adventures.

At the English court, at the beginning of the 18th century, Lady Henriett fell in love with a farmer, Lionel, who, following a mistake, believes her to be his servant. By learning his quality, Lionel refuses to receive the one he already considered his fiancée. The queen herself will appease this lover's quarrel and, moreover, will free the peasants of his kingdom.

A Nazi spy has stolen a gas mask filter of formidable efficiency in Paris. Two agents from the 2nd office have the task of going to take him back to Berlin.

After a year of turbulent marriage Annette and Daniel get a divorce, and each marries again. However, they meet again on the French Riviera and are tempted to give in to their old passion...

The life in Morocco of an officer of the Foreign Legion, Colonel de Joyeuse.

During World War I, in Flanders, Berry and Trent were in love with the same girl, Yvonne. During a battle in the Widow's Island sector, Trent is wounded and abandoned by Berry. Trent being reported missing, Berry now has a clear path to marry Yvonne. Two decades later, Yvonne incidentally meets a tourist guide in the former combat zone region who looks fiendishly like - Trent.

Barnabé, an occasional flutist, goes to Mme Petit-Durand to organize her daughter's 20 years. But he is confused with the Count of Marengo whom Mme Petit-Durand wants to give as husband to her daughter, who has already made her choice.

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?

In South America anything can happen: the consul might give you as a snack to the sharks, you can wind up as a working man (slave) in a banana plantation or as a recruit in the governor's navy. And there's always a fire squad waiting for you so you 'd better start a revolution! It takes all Fernandel's talent to go through this eventful journey.

A father allows himself to be accused of the murder of a blackmailer to save his son who is the real murderer. But he is forced to confess, and commits suicide in his cell.

Considering his wife as his property, a smuggler bullies the unfortunate woman and does not allow her to turn to another man.

Loursat, a lawyer, lives with his daughter Nicole in a sinister and vast bourgeois residence. Abandoned for nearly twenty years by his wife, the brilliant lawyer has sunk into alcoholism and his relationship with his daughter is virtually non-existent. However, one day the corpse of a stranger is discovered in the residence of Loursat. Nicole, who frequents a gang of young people who escape boredom by stealing cars and other objects, is immediately suspected.

Several men of different nationalities have decided to free themselves from the clutches of women and have vowed to help each other in case one of them might relapse. They find shelter in a hacienda on the pampas. They believe they are now safe from the evil influence of the fair sex. Unfortunately there is a farm nearby in which... a gorgeous woman is said to live. Great principles are short-lived, as they soon realize: lust, jealousy and hate set in at once.

An ambitious and perverse adventurer sows dissension and ruin in a wealthy family of industrialists.

Desiring to give his compatriots a taste for laughter, a comic Marseilles founds a club with friends whose joke is the reason for living and tries to breathe new life into the sleeping city.

A painter has his daughter brought up by a couple of innkeepers who run an establishment on the edge of the water with the sign: Here we fish. Having grown up, she refuses to join him and prefers her adoptive parents.

A parodic trial, in which one sees a merry luron, tried for trifles, rallying the whole court to him as soon as one learns that he inherits a large fortune.

An old woman living in an inn is killed and her family members seem like the likely culprits.

Arriving in Paris, Madeleine Marsan rents a room in a guesthouse where she makes the acquaintance of Pierre Ruffin, a respectable municipal librarian. Through Pierre, Madeleine finds work as a schoolteacher and soon realises that she is in love with him. Then she discovers that Pierre is in truth the head of a band of crooks. Caught by the police after a failed robbery, Pierre manages to escape. With Madeleine’s help, he goes on the run.

Caprices tells the story of two young rich people. A famous actress poses as a poor florist, and a distinguished society man camouflages himself as forger and swindler. This game leads them to make close relations in a series of adventures.

Au p'tit Zouave, a café, sees a colorful clientele from working-class Paris. An assassin will shake up the daily life of the regulars.

Leaving the station after having caught the last Paris Metro, a man comes to the rescue of a woman who is being assaulted and finds himself drawn into her affairs.

An adventure between rival spies about documents concerning the process for extracting fuel from seawater. A love story that threatens to turn tragic, since the young woman enlisted by force in the network of doctor Morenius falls in love of her rival before returning, triumphant, to her fiancé.

A guardian, abusing his prerogatives, imposes on a young girl the husband he has chosen for her. On the very day of the wedding ceremony, the bride fled. She is picked up on the road by four bandits who are going on a business expedition. After many adventures, each as implausible as the next, the heroine will marry the man of her choice.

Fernand Espitalion is miserable as totally whipped husband of a dragon 'passed on' -like cloths- by his late cousin. She often leaves him waiting outside like a dog when she does business. While she sees a notary about an inheritance, he's seduced to a bar by a shady man. The rogue gets Fernand drunk, knocks him out and switches costumes and papers. He's now Robert Durand, a voluntary Foreign legion recruit. After failed attempts to explain, he tastes military life and finds it less disciplined and more enjoyable then, marriage. But will that last when his wife tracks him and his unit is sent to action in tribal Algeria?

The king orders viscount Florestan to take mademoiselle de Solanges for his wife. But the viscount doesn't know the young lady at all. The latter decides to seduce her future husband by introducing herself to him with the name Veronique...

Stanislas Oscar Seminario, aka SOS, is a young explorer, just back from Africa, visiting old friends: the Pescara's. But the father keeps receiving anonymous letters. And soon a mysterious murder is committed. SOS begins to investigate...

Mathilde Stangerson just married her fiance, when she heard that Larsan, her cruel former husband, whom she believed to be dead, is actually very much alive. Taking refuge to her castle, she appealed to the journalist Rouletabille to protect her.

A famous comedian decrees that his fortune will go to whoever collects as many pop star autographs as quickly as possible. When he dies, two cousins ​​embark on the race for signatures.

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.

While celebrating his birthday, police inspector Basquier recalls two of his most celebrated cases. The first involves duplicitous moneylender Olga. The second concerns the brutal broad daylight murder of innocent young Yvonne.

A young reporter solves a mystery crime. The fictional reporter is Joseph Rouletabille. He works on a complex, and seemingly impossible, crime in which the criminal appears to disappear from a locked room.

After committing a murder, a man locks himself in his apartment and recollects the events the led him to the killing.

Captain Justin Mollenard works for a company that sells armaments to the Far East. After an eventful stay in Shanghai, where he and his cargo are the victim of a malicious attack, he returns to his hometown of Dunkirk. Mollenard receives a frosty welcome from his wife Mathilde, who resents the way in which he has neglected his family for so many years. Mollenard’s only wish is to get back to sea as soon as he can, but a sudden heart-attack leaves him paralysed and entirely in his wife’s power...

This is the the sad story of a car manufacturer, short of the readies, who asks his wife for money (for she owns the fortune). She refuses for her dad bankrupted himself and she would not be able to stand poverty again. He contemplates suicide but someone comes to his rescue and there's still hope: they can win the "Circuit De Minuit", a motor race. Besides, there's a another woman who cares for him.

A cheetah runs away from a fair and steals Belgium's national symbol: Manneken Pis.

Marinette, the wife of Mario, a sympathetic hobo, is disgusted with the farm and runs off to Paris without husband or child. The tenacious husband sets off in pursuit, accompanied by the baby and a cow that's a bit cumbersome. The unfaithful woman wanted to become a star. Mario and his crew go from music hall to nightclub until finally, a classified ad brings back a repentant Marinette, just in time to prevent Mario from running off with a prostitute, herself eager for a change of scene.

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.

Aged penniless actors are living in a old people's home. They always talk about their past glory or failures. One day Raphael Saint-Clair comes; he has been a famous actor and had a lot of love affairs. Passions come back, and jealousies... A bitter film about aging, failure and the entertainment.

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.

Now that their parents are ruined, Jacques Eyssette and his younger brother Daniel, are driven to fend for themselves. Jacques becomes the secretary of a marquis who exploits him by making him work so hard that his health gets damaged. Daniel, on his part, is hired as a supervisor and Latin teacher in a school in the province. It soon happens that he is in a bad situation too as, after being subjected to repeated harassment, he ends up being fired. Daniel then decides to join Jacques in Paris, hoping to embark on a literary career. Unfortunately, Irma Borel, an actress, sets her sight on him and drags him into a life of vice.

In 1825, Paul-Louis Courier, a Republican writer known for publishing pamphlets against the French monarchy, was killed in the farm where he had retired. Was it a political assassination or a vicious crime? Those who have known him loved him or hated him are interrogated by the police. Will the guilty person(s) be ferreted out?

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.

Film adaptation of Georges Feydeau's 1908 stage farce.

Flanders, Hispanic Monarchy, 1616. The inhabitants of the small town of Boom are busy organizing the annual local festivities when the arrival of the Duke of Olivares, who rules the country on behalf of the King Philip III of Spain, is announced. While the male citizens cowardly surrender to panic like rats on a sinking ship, the brave female citizens, led by the bold wife of the burgomaster, decide to become the best hosts the Spaniards can ever meet.

Michel has stolen from his employer, Mr Bellanger, for the love of Juliette. He is now in jail. One night, while sleeping in his cell, he wakes up all of a sudden, the gates open and he finds himself in a strange village where all the inhabitants have lost their memory. There, meets Juliette again who seems to agree to marry a powerful man, who might well be Bluebeard...

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.

As Hélène is conveying her husband's body across the Sahara, her convoy is attacked by looters. The young widow survives only to be taken to a remote desert village called Tirzit amidst a band of lonely, ailing men. She meets her husband's partner who tries to kill her. Hélène does not report him to the police but is curious to learn the reasons for his action. Before dying of a terrible fever, the man confesses that he murdered her husband.