Genica Missirio
Belphégor deals with a series of mysterious appearances by a masked-and-robed figure in the Louvre; a security guard is murdered, and a later police trap is foiled when the phantom—“Belphégor” (the name of a legendary demon)—uses knock-out gas. Journalist Jacques Bellegarde of “Le Petit Parisien” (the real-life newspaper which published the original story in serial installments), investigates, and eventually discovers famous detective Chantecoq and his vivacious daughter Colette are also on the case.
A massive 5 1/2 hour biopic of Napoleon, tracing his career from his schooldays (where a snowball fight is staged like a military campaign), his flight from Corsica, through the French Revolution (where a real storm is intercut with a political storm) and the Terror, culminating in his triumphant invasion of Italy in 1797 (the film stops there because it was intended to be part one of six, but director Abel Gance never raised the money to make the other five). The film's legendary reputation is due to the astonishing range of techniques that Gance uses to tell his story, culminating in the final twenty-minute triptych sequence, which alternates widescreen panoramas with complex multiple- image montages projected simultaneously on three screens.
A mother sells a photo of her daughter to the press for publicity, and a daughter suddenly dies leaving the mother desperate surrounding by portraits of her daughter all around town.
François Vidocq has deserted to go back to his wife and kids, so he becomes a thief. Unfortunately, he finds she had become Manon-la-blonde, mistress of a rich man named Ouvrard, and his children have disappeared. He offers his services to the chief of intelligence service and begins a fight against the Aristo, chief of the gang of the children of the sun. After a few years, he dismantles the gang, and finds both his sons. One has become a blackguard, the other a famous organist who is about to be knighted and will soon get married to his beloved.
