la cartomancienne
In the First World War, when Paris is expected to fall to the Germans, the attractive widow, Princesse de Bormes, organises a convoy of cars to evacuate the wounded from the front, and bring them back to her villa in Paris to recuperate. The authorities will not give them passes until an innocent 16-year-old boy, Guillaume Thomas de Fontenoy, joins them and is mistaken as the nephew of the popular General de Fontenoy. The Princess is enraptured by Thomas and her daughter, Henriette, falls in love with him. However Thomas feels impelled to see more of the action of the war.
Mme de Mauvières
Duelist and poet Cyrano de Bergerac and musketeer d'Artagnan meet and team up to stop the conspiracy against King Louis XIII of France.
la belle-mère de Duchêne
Désespéré par la mort de sa femme, le banquier René Duchesne se promène le long de la Seine. Seule la rencontre de Suzanne, son ancienne femme de chambre lui révélant les infidélités de Madame, le sauve du suicide. Monsieur décide alors d'aider sa protégée à sortir de la prostitution, et d'empêcher ses beaux-parents de faire main basse sur l'héritage.
Catherine's grandmother
Madame Brigitte
A poignant comedy about a mute who befriends Nicole, the little daughter of a prostitute. Gleason shows his considerable talents as an actor without uttering a sound as he plays the bumbling, kind-hearted janitor, Gigot. Gleason wrote the original story and music for this film.
Mme Victoria, la directrice
The story of a man who has stopped drinking- and then dreaming- and who thanks to a young man who tries to forget a lost love in alcohol will turn drunk again during an exciting night.
La directrice de l'institute Smolny
Tsar Alexandre II meets a young student, Katia. He understands that he loves her and try to send her away but they end up seeing each other again and becomes his mistress. With the help of Katia, Alexandre prepares a liberal constitution, but these reforms make him hostile to the more privileged subjects without satirising the revolutionaries against the regime.
Madame Marcevault
Since the day their mother Aline remarried, Patrice and Eric, a joyful pair of twins, have been very happy. Indeed, François Chantour, their stepfather, is very kind and behaves like a big brother to them. Even if they are not very rich, the four of them live a cheerful life in their charming house. The trouble is that, in Lyon, the family on the boys'father's side are worried, especially the twins' grandmother, who fears Patrice and Eric are given a bad education. She therefore brings them to her big house in the hope of their improving their manners. A very unfortunate decision indeed.
Kitajewa
Young Prince Nechljudov is summoned as a judge in a murder trial. A rich merchant was found dead in the room of the inn where he was staying and the prostitute Maslova was accused of the crime. Nechljudov recognizes in the woman the maid of the aunts he had seduced and abandoned years before and tries to convince the authorities of her of his innocence but to no avail. Convinced that he is responsible for her moral fall, he follows her to Siberia where she must serve her sentence.
Madame Andrée l'infirmière
A doctor at a run-down psychiatric hospital is offered a large sum of money to shelter a new patient. Soon the place is full of suspicious and secretive characters, all apparently international secret agents trying to find out who and what the patient is.
La Frochard
La baronne du Verger
Adèle Lacaud
An American soldier romances a beautiful Parisian during the final days of World War II.
Zoe
An engineer has a romance with the mistress of a rich banker but she sacrifices herself,returning to the rich man, for the best interests of the lover and his family.
Mother Superior
A war correspondent who was stationed in Paris during WW II married a French girl who was murdered by the Nazis. After the war he returns to to try to find his son, whom he lost during a bombing raid but has been told is living in an orphanage in Paris.
Contessa Lagardere
20 years after the assassination of his father, the son of Lagardère seeks revenge.
La margrave Josépha
Bavaria, 1433. Reason of state rules that Prince Albert is to marry Princess Bertha of Wurtemberg. But the fine-looking young man is loath to become the husband of a woman with pimples,flat feet and no breast. Nevertheless, he has to obey his authoritarian father, Duke Ernest, and accompanied by faithful Count Törring, he mounts his steed and sets out for Würtemberg. Stopping in Augsburg, he falls in love with the daughter of a local barber-surgeon, pure and beautiful Agnès Bernauer. The couple is soon secretly married and both take refuge at the castle of Margravine Josepha, Albert's aunt, waiting for Ernest's consent. Unluckily Albert's father will not accept his son's union with a commoner and Albert, supported by Josepha and an army of common people, declares war on the Duke. They seem about to be victorious when Brother Enrique, a monk formerly in the Holy Inquisition, finds a way to reverse the situation: accusing Agnès of witchcraft...
Madame de Malvines
During World War II, German soldiers occupy the home of a beautiful Belgian girl and her mother.
Mme d'Ortemont
François Donge, a rich industrialist and womaniser, meets a girl nicknamed Bébé who he marries. Ten years later, poisoned by his wife and dying in hospital, he recalls his married life and understands how his wife who adored him suffered from his many affairs and indifference.
Mrs. Mussot
By taking the defense of Raymond Denis, accused of having killed his mistress, when she committed suicide because he did not want to recognize his child, the lawyer Claude Nogent, learns that he himself was born of unknown father.
Aunt
A young dancer, disappointed with her debut on stage, has three dreams: fame in dancing at the Paris Opera, wealth through her marriage to an important jeweler, and love in the person of a petty hood. Disappointed even in her dreams, the ballerina takes refuge in her art.
Headmistress
Progressive schoolteachers Landi and Anna have a profound influence on two of their young students, Mirella and Franco. The two kids are enamored with one another and decide to experiment with some of the knowledge they've gleaned in the classroom.
Saleswoman
Port of Marseille, France, recently liberated from the German yoke. Caught as stowaways aboard a ship, Manon, a young woman who was accused of collaborating with the Nazis, and Robert, a freedom fighter who saved her from reprisals, tell the captain about the many challenges they have had to face in order to survive.
Tante Léo
Young Michel is in love with the attractive Madeleine, so he decides to tell his parents of his intention to marry her. He thinks his announcement is innocent enough; his engagement, however, threatens to reveal dark secrets lurking within his family's home. Yvonne, Michel's overbearing mother, concocts an elaborate scheme to drive Madeleine away, thus keeping uncomfortable household truths from being exposed.
Aunt Edmée
The tour of a theatrical troupe is disturbed by the waltz-hesitation love of the young actress Stepha between the young first and the director.
Self (archive footage)
Nicole Védrèss' chronicle of Paris from 1900 to 1914 is brought to life through the use of original material, all authentic, secured from more then 700 films belonging to public and private collections. A few of the celebrities of the time shown are Enrico Caruso, Sarah Bernhardt, and Maurice Chevalier.
la duchesse d'Albuquerque
Exiled from the court of Spain, Don Salluste, the chief of police, wants to take revenge on the Queen. One day he meets Ruy Blas, a young student who happens to be a lookalike of Don Cesar, his nephew. Salluste disguises Ruy Blas and presents him as Don Cesar. It doesn't take long before Ruy Blas, intelligent, virtuous and generous as he is becomes popular and the Queen, who has fallen in love with him, appoints him Prime Minister. All seems for the best in the best of worlds but Salluste has not forgotten his revenge, far from that ...
La présidente Groussault
The life of Vincent de Paul, the 17th-century author and priest who founded two religious orders.
Mrs. Puc
Portrait of a two-faced man. By day he is rich, brilliant and respectable financial officer Lussac; at night, he becomes "Mirror", a ruthless gang leader in Marseilles.
Madame Meillan
Martine discovers, on the eve of her wedding, that her mother, whom she believed to be dead, leads an adventurous life. Pierre, her fiancé, unable to overcome his family's opposition to the revelation of this news, decides to kidnap Martine. The adventurer, who is not recognized by her daughter, agrees to leave France. The family of the young man will no longer put obstacles in the way of marriage.
Constance
Chérie is a beautiful young woman who works as an escort girl. She meets a young and wealthy man who propose her to be his fictional wife so that his mother won't bother him anymore with this other girl, a rich one, she wants to see her son married to.
Countess of Cébrat
During the 1940 exodus, a young girl takes in a baby to whom she becomes deeply attached.
Madame Ancelot
Cabaret star Zazu intervenes when young lovers are sundered by their parents' feud.
Solange, l'assistante de Philippe
Philippe Clarence, a famous Parisian dressmaker, seduces his friend's fiancee. But, for the first time in his life, this is for real. The film is also a sharp picture of the fashion world.
Madame de Maintenon
Jeanne De Pincret refuses to marry Viscount Haussy De Villefort, having discovered his frivolity. After a duel against the Duke De Montgobert, whom Louis XIV recommended to Jeanne, the king forced De Villefort to marry Jeanne, then sent her to war. Separated from her husband, Jeanne discovers that she loves him.
La comtesse de Saint-Helie
Elfy, Countess of Saint-Hélié's daughter, was brought up with her foster sister Anne, in an old dilapidated castle whose landlord, Baron Julius Carol, disappeared mysteriously some day. The two girls had a playmate, Hervé, the son of the gamekeeper. Now that they are adult, Anne is in love with Hervé while Elfy thinks she loves the young man. One day, the baron's mummified body is found in an oubliette and the secret of the estate is revealed...
Magda de Malveneur
There's a curse on the Malveneur family. There's a black legend which tells that one of their ancestors sold his soul to the devil and he was cursed: man by day, wolf by night.T hese doomed aristocrats were hunters,hence their name (Malveneur = evil venerer). The last of the Malveneur is a scientist who carries out strange experiments on ...nobody knows exactly what the does in the subterranean.The wife has a heart condition, her sister-in-law is a masculine authoritarian lady. And nights in the old castle are not exactly peaceful.
Gérardine Éloi
A young man comes back to his hometown to be confronted with a bourgeois obnoxious family who has always despised his -now dead - parents because they were music hall artists, "entertainers". But because he's the sole legatee of an uncle's fortune, his relatives become friendly with him.. at least for a while.
Mademoiselle Pressac, aunt Laurie
Mademoiselle Bressac is a bossy spinster who manages "Le Clos", her estate, with an iron hand. But is she really a bad person? Her manners are abrupt but they only hide a heart of gold. Doesn't she bring up four orphans, Dominique, Fabien, Chantal and Jean? And as if it were not enough, she has accepted to educate another child, her niece Patricia, entrusted to her care by her irresponsible father. Thanks to her, the five young people have grown up in harmony and now they are about to find their place in society. Two of them, Jean and Patricia, who love each other, live only for the estate.
Madame Darbois
A famous singer and a settler love each other. She lives only for her home and the child she is expecting. At birth, she suffered an accident and could no longer be a mother. Desperate, she wants to leave her husband but the war breaks out and he is missing. She faces, courageously, alone the life of the bled.
Madame Boisleroi
Before the war. Mr. and Mrs. Boisleroi, well off, lived in their castle while their son Jacques courted Geneviève, the manager's daughter. On mobilization, the manager becomes flight captain, Boisleroi a simple waykeeper and Jacques wants to enlist. Refugees arrive: an actress, a player, an old marquis, former owner of the castle and who will die there. All this life together culminates in the marriage of Jacques and Geneviève.
Mademoiselle Lebeau
The everyday life and activity of "La Dernière Heure", a major evening newspaper, seen through the eyes of Hélène Perrin, a cub reporter trained by Pierre Rabaud, a star in his field. Side by side they will investigate several events: an air show that ends tragically, the coming to France of a Hollywood actress, a lightship caught in a terrible storm...
The director of the orphanage
Micheline Chevassu is a young, naive woman living in an orphanage. Through classified ads, she has a date with an unknown man. She escapes from the orphanage to go to it, dreaming of the Prince Charming. But comes Nicolas Rougemont, an unattractive middle-aged man... He pretends not to be the author of the letters, who could not come...
L'archiduchesse Marie-Thérèse
An Austrian prince's doomed love affair with a Czech countess sparks turmoil across Europe.
Adrienne
Jean Vernet, an unselfish banker, feels fine : he has a charming mistress, Jacqueline ; a godson, Fernand, that he took in when he was a child and that he has brought up and cherished ever since ; a faithful friend, Lamblin ; and an adorable dog. But things are not so rosy as they look. Adrienne, Jean's sister, hates Jacqueline and is prepared to do everything to separate the couple. Worse, it looks as though Fernand has betrayed his godfather by sleeping with Jacqueline. To know more about those around him, Jean, a modern Volpone, decides to fake deafness.
Madame Chabert
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.
Madame Bernier
The owner of an apartment building is found murdered. Two rival policemen, Boucheron and Lambert, investigate the matter and get into the private lives of the tenants: an unfaithful judge, a crippled blind man and his daughter, an eccentric knife thrower, a shoplifter (and proud of it!), a bourgeois lady who has a bone to pick with a gigolo, a mistress who cheats on her lover, not forgetting the caretaker and a soldier in love.
Gisèle's mother
A middle-aged Parisian lawyer meets a young girl and falls in love with her. The girl's mother discovers the affair and the couple must flee.
Adrienne
Gilbert Quercy, 18, tried to commit suicide after a heartache. At the hospital, three women try to cheer him up : the three former wives of his father, an archaeologist and an egyptologist, whom Gilbert called his "mothers". These women show a lot of willingness, but soon will become intrusive.
College director
A Russian emigrant sings in a Shanghai nightclub under the assumed name of Kay Murphy. All she dreams of is a peaceful life with her daughter Vera. But this is only a pipe dream as she has been forced by her former lover Ivan to work for a secret criminal organization, "The Black Dragon". Vera, who studies in a Hong Kong boarding-school, knows nothing about her mother's past. When Ivan, who is also Vera's father, resurfaces and blackmails Kay, the young woman is determined to fight back...
Baroness Granger
The brave Monsieur Breloque has a friend, Pierre Martel, a private detective. When the latter asks him to replace him for a while, Breloque, although having no competence in the matter, accepts. He anticipates adventures and misadventures but also happy surprises.
Mme Mollenard
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...
Gabrielle Brunois
Germaine Moreuil's insane jealousy triggers such violent marital quarrels that the spouses file for divorce. When Germaine's parents find out, they sham a fierce spat to disgust their daughter and her husband with the pathetic spectacle of a couple at loggerheads. But just as their farce is on the brink of becoming a tragedy, events combined with the blunders of all four happily reconcile everyone.
Baroness Engern
Nina Petrovna is a Russian beauty claimed by two Austrian officers.
Lady Patricia Brandmore
Unhappy with her humdrum life as a provincial schoolteacher, Audrey Greenwood marries Major Carter, an officer in the British Army whom she does not love. Not long after the wedding Carter is on his way to Malaysia, accompanied by his wife, to take up a post in the British colony. During the long sea voyage, Audrey becomes acquainted with the handsome Prince Selim, the heir to the Malaysian throne. Life in the province of Malacca soon proves disagreeable to the free-spirited Englishwoman and she becomes a social outcast when her amorous affair with the prince is discovered.
Madame de Juvigny
Believing that her husband is cheating on her, Jacqueline decides to take revenge and goes to find Ernest, a chilled sigh. But in her bachelor apartment, she cannot decide to push her revenge to the end.
La mère
A pilot on one of the air mail flights between France and its African colonies has a brief romance with his distressed cousin before he returns to the call of duty, and the rebels in the desert.
Mme Granval, the director
After finding and adopting a child, a man gets a job at an all-girls school which doesn't allow families. Once the girls find the baby, they become his forty little mothers. At the same time, the child's true mother searches for him.
la marquise d'Andeline
An aristocratic woman is coerced by her impoverished family into marrying a wealthy business tycoon.
Empress Élisabeth
Rudolf, the only heir to Emperor Franz Josef of Austria-Hungary, is trapped in a loveless marriage to a Belgian princess. As he seeks to flee his stifling environment, he meets the beautiful Maria, and the two enter into a scandalous affair. Despite the interference of the Emperor, the couple refuse to give each other up.
