Fernand Sardou
The sweet elderly aunt and her two nieces survive the vendetta killing of their whole family because they are out picking flowers at the time. Undaunted, the aunt, a tough old Corsican, tracks down and kills all but one of the men who wiped out her kinfolk.
When he gets separated from his unit, Laforet (Roger Van Hool) becomes a de facto deserter during 1939 fighting in the French provinces. Most of the story concerns his love affair with a local farmgirl, as he competes for her affection with a refugee from Spain. When he presses her to make a decision between them, the choice doesn't go in his favor. Soon after this he joins up with the Resistance movement.
Henry Roubier, a French promoter, and Enrico Mazzini, an Italian, have signed an agreement guaranteeing them a stranglehold on European highways. While driving on the roads of the south, Roubier takes two young hitchhikers, but an unfortunate swerve the car rushes by Henri and its occupants on the top of a pine tree onto the side of a cliff.
Part One, "The Last Christmas Dinner," is about the relationship between an old man and an old woman, both homeless. Part Two, "The Electric Floor Polisher," is an opera-like story of a woman who is obsessed with polishing her floors. Part Three is a musical interlude featuring Jeanne Moreau singing "When Love Dies." Part Four, "The Virtue of Tolerance," concerns an old man, his young wife, and how they come to terms when she has an affair with a man her own age.
The ambitious police officer Cruchot is transferred to St. Tropez. He's struggling with crimes such as persistent nude swimming, but even more with his teenage daughter, who's trying to impress her rich friends by telling them her father was a millionaire and owned a yacht in the harbor.
The holidays at a pension in Touquet (North-Western France) are marred by a series of tragic disappearances.
Samuel finances his participation in a card game by stealing parts from a jeep. He cheats at cards, and has his hands broken as a consequence.
Without knowing it, Johnny, a young rock musician, finds himself involved with a Parisian drug gang. Realising he is being set up, he throws the drugs into the Seine and takes refuge in the Camargue with his family and his fiancée, Gigi. Meanwhile, the dealers are hot on their heels.
Two women, Léa and Clotilde, with two men, Ludovic and Papillon, form a nice quartet of crooks. Their targets: pharmacists, diamond dealers, and gogos of all kinds who respond to enticing classified ads. Business is booming, but the police are watching. Commissioner Masson will eventually arrest them, but, ironically, for a matter of which they are totally innocent.
Since the IRS has ordered new taxes, all traders in the village are tormented. Only Torquato Pezzella, a wealthy merchant of rain does not give in to despair general. To escape the contributions it has offered a tax advisor, the very respectable Curto Hector, who is in reality an ignorant on the subject. Still, Pezzella that has so far managed to avoid the taxes through the valuable advice of his new partner. Until one day an inspector of the brigade versatile, the formidable Topponi Fabio decides to check himself the accounting of this individual who is enriched by eye and does not report to the state. The note is difficult to digest; home Pezzella owes more than fifteen million in contributions. However, an unexpected event will upset all the data ...
Etienne Alexis, a candidate for president of the new Europe, is a scientist promoting artificial insemination for social betterment and therapy to eliminate passion. To celebrate his engagement to a cousin, he hosts an aseptic picnic, where mother nature asserts herself. A shepherd's flute conjures a windstorm that throws Alexis together with the luscious Nénette, a farm lass who wants to have a baby but is unimpressed with men.
Jean Brevent still did not understand the departure of his wife, Danielle Darieux. It's been five years, but he still can't forget her. In spite of a work of writer originator in a newspaper, in which it tried to be invested completely, time did not make its work. One day, by chance, he meets her in the bus...
La moucharde stars Dany Carrel as a young miss who loves neither wisely nor well. Duped into a life of crime, Carrel remains on the wrong side of the Law because she's hopelessly in love with a two-bit crook. Soon she becomes as jaded and hardened as her criminal cohorts. When the police threaten to throw her in the Bastille, Carrel agrees to turn informer, with the expected disastrous results.
Manuel, a landowner in Jamaica, arrives in Paris on vacation. There he meets Olivia, a Spanish popular singer and falls in love. Olivia leaves Paris to play in a casino of the Riviera and Manuel follows her there. Maxime lives in Cannes, uncle of Olivia, a trickster who poses as a magician and has great influence on Annie, an eccentric billionaire. At the same time, Simeon, Annie's secretary tries to bribe the magician to influence Annie to accept to marry him, but as Maxime also wants to marry her, Simeon uses the services of a private detective. Manuel receives a telegram asking him to return to Jamaica. So, Annie proposes them a cruise aboard his yacht and invites Olivia.
The spoiled daughter of the French Ambassador tricks one of his aides into marrying her.
Sylvie is a young cashier in a Montmartre café, "le bar des Philosophes", owned and run by Monsieur Marcel, a former safe cracker. One day, the pretty creature accepts to give a helping hand to two regulars, Francis and Josélito. But what the naive girl does not know is that the two men are gangsters and that they plan to steal 50 million francs deposited in the safe of Maître Roland Devert, a charming young notary. Actually things do not go according to plan all the more as a love story between the notary and Sylvie was not at all on the two gangsters' agenda.
Aimé Morin, a good-natured bookseller, is also one of the candidates in the local elections of his small town. He is well-liked by most but he also has political enemies. Among them is Lagarde, a journalist close to the latter. Lagarde takes advantage of Morin being on holiday in Paris to try and tarnish his reputation. His machination unfortunately works and poor Aimé finds himself mistaken for a sex maniac.
Pepe la Vache, who coveted Fernande's love, denounced her protector: Dominique le Corse, who was arrested. But Fernande was attracted by Jesus the Quail, a guy of dubious manners. Intimidated by Pepe, the Quail moved away.
Out of prison after a five-year stretch, jewel thief Tony turns down a quick job his friend Jo offers him, until he discovers that his old girlfriend Mado has become the lover of local gangster Pierre Grutter during Tony's absence. Expanding a minor smash-and-grab into a full-scale jewel heist, Tony and his crew appear to get away clean, but their actions after the job is completed threaten the lives of everyone involved.
In Marseille, crime squad captain Dominique fights against racketeers and tries to put a young man back on the right track.
Set in the countryside of Provence, the film is based on three tales from Alphonse Daudet's 1869 short story collection Letters from My Windmill: "The Three Low Masses", "The Elixir of Father Gaucher" and "The Secret of Master Cornille".
Young conductor Roberto Lombardini has never known his father who is actually a former musician, a failed piano player who has sunk into alcoholism.
After a novice nun learns of the sudden death of her parents, she leaves the convent to manage the family business and look after her teenage sister. Both of them fall prey to a womanizing mechanic with psychopathic tendencies.
In Cantagrel, Urbain Coindet, a farmer and town councilor in his forties, finds his wife hanging from a beam in the barn. Aurélie Coindet has committed suicide but not everybody is convinced. The village is soon divided in two conflicting sides, the Republicans who support Urbain and the clericals accusing him of murder, which particularly suits Frédéric, a tobacco smuggler who hates the farmer. Urbain's case becomes even worse as he develops a tender feeling for Jeanne, a sweet young lady who happens to be Frédéric's sister...
