René Clair
Collective contribution to a history of cinema, this issue of the “Civilisations” collection also takes part in the genesis of Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'elle and La Chinoise
In the 18th century, as the army of Prince De Beaulieu lays siege on the fortress of Marechal D'Allenberg, a young princess sends a soldier out of the fortress to go find her lover.
"Les quatre vérités" aka "The Four Truths" is a movie anthology that consists of four segments, all loosely parodying fables from the 17th-century French poet Jean de la Fontaine. The US cut usually features only 3 segments.
Businessman Victor Hardy wants to buy the entire area around the small village of Cabosse. He claims that he wants to return to nature, but he also intends to profit by selling the water from the village fountain, which is reputed to enhance longevity. However old farmer Mathieu and his sons don't want to sell...
The seven stages in the life of the modern Frenchwomen are disclosed by seven directors in a witty way: 1 - Childhood, 2 - Adolescence, 3 - Virginity, 4 - Marriage, 5 - Adultery, 6 - Divorce, 7 - The Single Woman.
Juju, a drunken oaf who feels the need of being important to someone---anyone---and his friend The Artist are forced at gunpoint to house a fugitive, Pierre Barbier, in Juju's broken-down home. The urge for being needed is such in Juju that he gives up drinking and takes care of Pierre. But one day Juju finds out that Pierre has been making love to his girl Maria...
Armand, a boastful womaniser, makes a bet that he can seduce any girl he wants. He soon crosses paths with a beautiful Parisian divorcee, who is nothing like anyone he has ever met before.
A daydreaming French composer sees himself as a fine figure dashing through history.
Henri Faust, retiring after 50 years as a professor in a circa-1700 French university, despairs at the ravages of old age ... whereupon Mephistopheles, agent of Lucifer, appears as a virile, handsome young man and exchanges bodies with him to induce Faust to sign a pact to exchange his soul for renewed youth, riches and power. But though the "new" Faust is attracted by the material improvements in his life, he remains wary of signing, while Mephistopheles, now posing as the aged professor whose body he inhabits, must find a way to trick him into signing the pact - and dissuade him from the love of a gypsy girl who prays for his soul - or find himself damned by his own Master...
Emile is a French film producer at the beginning of the century. One of his friends leaves his daughter Lucette in his house, when he is starting a tour through France. Emile falls in love with her. Problems starts when his younger friend Jacques come back from military service and after complaining his misfortune with women, follows Emile's advice in starting affairs with women and he meets Lucette.
Ten strangers are summoned to a remote island and while they are waiting for the mysterious host to appear, a recording levels serious accusations at each of the guests. Soon they start being murdered, one by one. As the survivors try to keep their wits, they reach a disturbing conclusion: one of them must be the killer.
A young turn-of-the-century newspaper man finds he can get hold of the next day's paper. This brings more problems than fortune, especially as his new girlfriend is part of a phony clairvoyant act.
In World War II, American Gates Trimble Pomfret is in London during the Blitz to sell the ancestral family house. The current tenant, Leslie Trimble, tries to dissuade him from selling by telling him the 140-year history of the place and the connections between the Trimble and Pomfret families.
Rocksford, New England, 1672. Puritan witch hunter Jonathan Wooley is cursed after burning a witch at the stake: his descendants will never find happiness in their marriages. At present, politician Wallace Wooley, who is running for state governor, is about to marry his sponsor's daughter.
In old New Orleans, a beautiful adventuress juggles the attentions of a rich banker and a dashing sea captain.
Two small-time song-and-dance men come up with what they believe is a surefire publicity stunt, guaranteed to keep their names in the public eye--one of them will "disappear" in what looks like a murder, and the other will be convicted of the crime. Then the "dead man" will suddenly show up at his partner's murder trial. Unfortunately, things don't quite go as planned. For one thing, no one seems to much care that the "dead man" is missing, and for another thing he's mistaken for the leader of a Balkan revolutionary group and is kidnapped by the other side.
The film is a historical drama set during the reign of Elizabeth I (Flora Robson), focusing on the English defeat of the Spanish Armada, whence the title. In 1588, relations between Spain and England are at the breaking point. With the support of Queen Elizabeth I, British sea raiders such as Sir Francis Drake regularly capture Spanish merchantmen bringing gold from the New World.
An American businessman's family convinces him to buy a Scottish castle and disassemble it to ship it to America brick by brick, where it will be put it back together. The castle though is not the only part of the deal, with it goes the several-hundred year old ghost who haunts it.
The Last Billionaire is a 1934 French comedy film directed by René Clair and starring Max Dearly, Marthe Mellot and Renée Saint-Cyr. The film is based on a fictional small European kingdom which is on the verge of going broke. Its French title is Le dernier milliardaire.
In this classic French satire, Louis, a convict, escapes from prison and takes on legitimate work, making his way up in the business world. Eventually becoming the head of a successful factory, Louis opts to modernize his company with mechanical innovations. But when his friend Émile finally leaves jail years later and reunites with Louis, the past catches up with them. The two, worried about being apprehended by police, long to flee the confines of industry.
Debt-ridden painter Michel is overcome with joy at discovering that he has just won 1 million florins in the Dutch lottery, but almost immediately, he discovers that his softhearted girlfriend, Béatrice, has given away his jacket containing the winning ticket to an elderly petty thief. Soon Michel, Beatrice and Michel's artistic rival, Prosper, are hurtling through the streets of Paris on the trail of the missing jacket.
In the tenement slums of Paris between the world wars, impoverished street singer Albert yearns for beautiful Romanian immigrant Pola. Pola's boyfriend, local hoodlum Fred, grows jealous of Albert's constant attention to his woman and frames the hapless musician for one of his own petty crimes. But while Albert is in prison for Fred's misdeed, Pola ends up falling for Albert's faithful best friend, Louis.
On the day of Fadinard's wedding, his horse eats a lady's hat on a bush at the roadside, while the lady is hidden behind the bush with her lover Lieutenant Tavernier. Because she is married, she cannot return home hatless without being compromised, and Tavernier orders Fadinard to replace the hat with one exactly like it - or else he will wreck his new home. In an elaborate sequence of complications, Fadinard tries to find a hat while keeping to his marriage schedule
Garadoux has beaten his wife. His lawyer Fremissin is young and very shy, and therefore, not very efficient... Two years after, Garadoux is trying to seduce Cecile, but she prefers Fremissin...
A pilot crashes and a beautiful countess of a castle nearby nurses him to health.
In a strange bank, a young clerk, in love with a typist, gets asleep after a minor incident. His dream sarries him into the retirement house of old fairies, that he will manage to help to grow younger. He then lands on the towers of Notre-Dame, and into the Musée GRévin, where a revolutionary court is in the process of judging the lovers, one of them soon being changed into a dog. But it was just a dream, and the journey ends up well...
A young man, unsuccessful in love, manages to leave his body and tours Paris, disembodied and invisible, playing practical jokes: a row of coats walks off from a hotel cloakroom; an unattended taxi drives itself away; a row of top hats appears on the pavement.
A night watchman on the Eiffel Tower wakes up to find the entire population of the city frozen in place.
Loie Fuller, in her 1920 feature-length film Le Lys de la vie, […] explored the new technique for poetic ends, creating fleeting, dreamlike images that "freed" the medium from "illusionism" and imbued it with fantasy.
