Tristan Bernard

Movies

Les deux canards
Author
Aux abois
Novel
Paul, a former insurer, is struggling to make ends meet. He agrees to meet Sarrebry, a loan shark introduced to him by his friend Daubelle. Paul mortally knocks out the disgusting crook and steals a large sum of money from him.
Teuf-teuf
Writer
An automobile tribute
Girls in Distress
Dialogue
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.
Le voyage imprévu
Writer
A husband orders his wife to recover a lost slipper. The wife enlists the aid of her friend, Beatrice (Betty Stockfield) to bring the slipper to her in Switzerland, and Georges (Roger Treville) follows Betty.
Lilac
Theatre Play
Also known as Lilac, this early Anatole Litvak-directed talkie was based on a play by Tristan Bernard and Charles Henry Hirsch. The story bears traces of the Bertold Brecht-Weill piece The Threepenny Opera, with heroine Lilac (Marcelle Romeo) consorting with the criminal scum of Paris. Lilac falls in love with a handsome detective (Andre Luguet), but he doesn't let his emotions stand in the way of his duty, and in the end he reluctantly turns her over to the authorities. At $120,000, Coeur de Lilas was one of the most expensive movies to come out of France in 1931, but it more than made back its cost at the box-office.
The Champion Cook
Screenplay
Le Cordon Bleu doesn't refer to a ham-and-veal delicacy, though there is plenty of ham in this Gallic comedy. The scene is a posh Parisian hotel-restaurant, which ends up a hotbed of infidelity and mistaken identity. Hotel cook Regina is romantically involved with her boss Octave, the husband of Irma. Mistaken for another woman, Irma is passionately pursued by Bernereau, whose wife gets involved with someone else's husband, whose wife gets involved with.
The Champion Cook
Theatre Play
Le Cordon Bleu doesn't refer to a ham-and-veal delicacy, though there is plenty of ham in this Gallic comedy. The scene is a posh Parisian hotel-restaurant, which ends up a hotbed of infidelity and mistaken identity. Hotel cook Regina is romantically involved with her boss Octave, the husband of Irma. Mistaken for another woman, Irma is passionately pursued by Bernereau, whose wife gets involved with someone else's husband, whose wife gets involved with.
Le poignard malais
Theatre Play
Lucien asks his father for money to support his girlfriend. The father refuses. Lucien's GodMother is found dead.
The Little Cafe
Theatre Play
Yvonne, daughter of Philibert, a Paris café owner, is in love with dreamy, blundering Albert, a waiter, though he pays little attention to her. Philibert plans to marry his daughter to a wealthy Parisian, but upon learning that Albert is to come into a large inheritance, he conspires to place him under a longterm contract, confident that he willingly will pay a forfeit to break it....
Kiss Me
Theatre Play
Triplepatte
Theatre Play
Robert de Houdan is indecisiveness itself. He keeps hesitating, shilly-shallying and never reach any decision in any way. So much so that he finds himself on the verge of ruin and falls prey to Boucherot, a greedy loan-shark who puts pressure on him to marry Yvonne Herbelier. Boucherot is assisted in his undertaking by baroness Pépin, a typical matchmaker. But Robert, who does not know the young lady, shies away from her.
Le Petit Café
Theatre Play
Max is a millionaire who is forced to lead a double-life as a waiter, the result of having lost a wager.