Jean Lefèvre
At the Opera of Toulon, the cast and crew hoping to put on a Satanism / human sacrifice-themed ballet entitled “La malédiction de Belphégor” soon find their numbers dwindling.
Le patron du relais routier
The film is a road movie that follows a middle aged man who gives a young woman a lift. On the car radio, news bulletins warn the population against a recently escaped sadist who is known to prey on young women and children. Lelouch often cuts away from the main story, if only briefly, to parallel events that are not necessarily crucial to the story but illustrate what is suggested by the radio.
Emile is a steelworker in a car factory ;a confirmed bachelor going on fifty, he leads a peaceful life .One night, he is woken up by a burst of machine gun fire. The cafe in the corner of the street has been burglarized.A distraught young girl rushes into his apartment building and hides in his room .When the police make a search, he makes her out to be his lover for the night.Madeleine tells her about her sad past : she has severed all links with her parents ,she's an unwed mother and in the underworld's clutches. Emile sends his protegee to old mommy Dupont's place ,in the suburbs of Paris.
Bernard - un habitué du café
Industrialist Pierre Verdier kills his mistress Jeanne Ancelin by throwing her off a train. Her husband, Ancelin, decides to take revenge on his wife's murderer, who has been acquitted by justice.
Pepere
Plotters decide to scuttle a ship for the insurance money, but things go wrong.
Un inspecteur (uncredited)
Married French lawyer Andre defends succesfully the case of Yvette, who committed a robbery. He falls in love with her, but she isn't true to him.
Le cafetier
Jo Guardini, now the peaceful owner of a charming inn by the banks of the River Marne, once was a dreaded gangster. The respectful citizen does not want to have anything to do with the underworld any more. Unfortunately, two of his former accomplices kidnap a little girl and decide to hide her in his hotel. What will Jo do : side with the law in the person of inspector Loriot or have a relapse in crime?
(uncredited)
Comedian Bob Hunter is aided by his French counterpart Fernydel and two beautiful blondes when he is targeted for death by a powerful European counterfeiting ring.
Un consommateur chez Bouche
Gentleman gangster Max and his partner, Riton, pull off their last, most successful heist and find themselves comfortable enough to retire in the style they enjoy. However, Max confides the details of the theft to his younger mistress, Josey -- who has secretly taken up with ambitious young rival gangster Angelo. Angelo then has Riton kidnapped and demands the stash of gold as ransom, which threatens Max's dreams of the perfect retirement.
Le laveur de carreaux de l'hôpital psychiatrique
Modest fifty-something, Mr. Perle, is a baker in a small provincial town. He lives there with an authoritarian woman and her cousin, a parasite who poisons his existence. A Parisian notary writes to the hero to ask him to come and take possession of an inheritance. In Paris, Perle meets a pretty adventuress.
Un révolutionnaire (uncredited)
A daydreaming French composer sees himself as a fine figure dashing through history.
In 1935, in the Burgundian village of Valromey, Commissioner Desbordes was the very unpopular leader of the anti-alcoholic league. His own brother, Pimpin, is an unconditional defender of the vineyard. Pierre Moreau is, for his part, the representative of a hygienic drink, the "Koku-Kolu". The cafe owner's daughter, Rose, will find the man very to her liking and will manage to seduce him.
Girard, l'homme dans la cabine téléphonique
Originally titled Nous Sommes Tout des Assassins, We Are All Murderers was directed by Andre Cayette, a former lawyer who detested France's execution system. Charles Spaak's screenplay makes no attempt to launder the four principal characters (Marcel Mouloudji, Raymond Pellegrin, Antoinine Balpetre, Julien Verdeir): never mind the motivations, these are all hardened murderers. Still, the film condemns the sadistic ritual through which these four men are brought to the guillotine. In France, the policy is to never tell the condemned man when the execution will occur--and then to show up without warning and drag the victim kicking and screaming to his doom, without any opportunity to make peace with himself or his Maker. By the end of this harrowing film, the audience feels as dehumanized as the four "protagonists." We Are All Murderers was roundly roasted by the French law enforcement establishment, but it won a special jury prize at the 1952 Cannes Film Festival.
The foreman
Since he met Odette, Pierre thinks only of her. Every day, he calls her saying only "Hello...I love you". Then he manages to get hired in the factory where Odette works...
Evanella, who writes the “Horoscope” section of a major newspaper, and her brother Méristo, create with the help of a young journalist, Jean Lassère and the capital of their uncle Amédée, a “Bureau des Prédictions”. Success being expected, they manage to obtain revelations about a gang of gangsters which they publish as predictions. It is success and fortune. Jean marries the newspaper director's daughter and Evanella the director himself.
Le radio
A Dakota plane is carrying a ton of gold bound for Brazzaville, but it is hijacked over the Camargue. On arrival, we find nails instead of gold!
Even back in 1951, boys knew more about cars than their dads.
Andrali
A plane flying to Dakar is caught in a storm and has to land in the desert. Deprived of a radio, he is unable to give his position and the water reserves are limited to two days. Each, among the military crew and the civilian passengers, experiences the ordeal according to his character.
Charles Lambert
A soccer enthusiast like his father, Martin Lambert is the (gifted) goalkeeper of the local team. He falls in love with Jeanette and soon marries her. Alongside a happy marital life, Martin becomes a successful professional. Which proves a mixed blessing since fame makes him vain and haughty and his marriage gets seriously affected. But the Second World War breaks out and Martin is drafted. Taken prisoner a few months later, he is sent to a camp. When he is released, he tries resume his career but his wounds hurt too much and he has to give in. But not soccer: he will now proudly train young shoots.
The aunt of Alfred Puc, a meek tax-collector in Paris, dies while riding in a moving van. The driver, not wishing to be bothered by a police interrogation, hides her corpse in a cupboard before notifying Alfred. But the van is stolen. Alfred, being the heir of a rich lady, begins a frantic search to locate the missing van and the cupboard because one can't claim an inheritance if there is no 'corpus delecti.' In his search, he gets caught up in an underworld web and finds the body of a murdered gangster in his room. He finally locates the cupboard but promptly loses it again. But, wait, it isn't "finis' time, yet.
Inspector Picard
Paris, France, December 1946. Jenny Lamour, an ambitious cabaret singer, and Maurice, her extremely jealous pianist husband, become involved in the thorough investigation of the murder of a shady businessman, led by Antoine, a peculiar and methodical police inspector.
A young girl nicknamed Snow White is part of the French ski team. She is courted by four international champions who challenge each other on the snow to win her heart. But everything gets complicated with the arrival of an Austrian champion.
Paulo
"Les jeux sont faits," is a fantasy film based on a screenplay by French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. A society heiress and a resistance fighter are tragically killed at the same moment and meet in the afterlife. They are offered a second chance at life if they can prove their love is real or be doomed to roam the earth as ghosts.
Alfred, un machiniste
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.
Gobert
The crew of a tank from the 1st French army took part in the liberation of Strasbourg during the fall of 1944.
Antoine Blaise
Sophie de Réan, an unruly mischievous little girl grows up under the thumb of Mademoiselle, her strict governess. Following her mother's death, she is entrusted to Mme de Fleurville, her aunt, who at the same time hires Mademoiselle to further Sophie's education. A few years later, the little girl has blossomed into a lovely young lady. She is now in love with Paul, her cousin, who, unlike her, used to be a model child. Unfortunately Mademoiselle will not hear of a union between them. Instead she wants Sophie to marry Armand, the conceited son of Prefect Hugon. To make matters worse, Paul, the good boy, unexpectedly turns into a revolutionary, who defends the Republic on the barricades against Louis Napoléon's coup. Not being one of the victors, Paul is forced into exile. Will Sophie finally yield and accept the established order or will she react in her usual rebellious way and follow the one she loves ?
Cheminot
A 1946 war movie which tells the courageous efforts by French railway workers to sabotage Nazi reinforcement-troop trains.
Georges
This woman's melodrama pivots around a child that a famous actress had in her youth, but whom she has concealed from the wealthy businessman she is now with.
René Favier
A devoted switchboard operator is the village guardian angel.
Symbolizing the destiny of man, Hora imposes her destiny on everyone. She appears to a petty bourgeois trying to escape from his mediocre life, to a frivolous mother, to a reveler in nightclubs, to a man stranded without money in a restaurant, to a young sportsman, to a singer tired of the selfishness of his listeners and to a condemned man. To each, she brings the imperative message of Time...
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.
Two young people, cousins to each other, inherit a domain where three comrades come to camp. The castle serves as a reserve for a black market band whose leader will do his best to clear out the new occupants. An inventor, an archaeologist, an inspector and a goatherd enter the circle...
Le coursier (uncredited)
Picpus is a street and a subway stop where a number of murders have been committed. Maigret tries to find the killer.
Marius
A discharged seaman winds up on an old man's farm: his children left the place for the broader horizons of the evil city; the walls are near decay ,the fields lie fallow.
Following a broadcast on the radio, each of the listeners remembers these "little nothings" (the title is borrowed from a play by Mozart), which have often changed their lives. Each of these stories told will prove that a tiny detail in life can change an entire destiny.
The Paladines write crime novels together. In a cinema, they happen to see a report on the consequences of a shipwreck in which Lieutenant Dupuis tells about the death of an old man in the lifeboat carrying the survivors. Husband and wife agree that this could be the starting point of a new story and go and see Dupuis to get more details about the drama. When they come to his hotel Dupuis is dead with a bullet in his head. Police characterizes the death as suicide but Paladine has found a train ticket in the dead man's pocket. With his wife he takes the train to the specified destination, somewhere in the provinces...
L'acrobate
The Paladines write crime novels together. In a cinema, they happen to see a report on the consequences of a shipwreck in which Lieutenant Dupuis tells about the death of an old man in the lifeboat carrying the survivors. Husband and wife agree that this could be the starting point of a new story and go and see Dupuis to get more details about the drama. When they come to his hotel Dupuis is dead with a bullet in his head. Police characterizes the death as suicide but Paladine has found a train ticket in the dead man's pocket. With his wife he takes the train to the specified destination, somewhere in the provinces...
1895. Discovery of X-rays. Researchers and scholars are true martyrs, because they do not know how to protect themselves against radiation dermatitis. Professor Belcour has to have one hand amputated, his assistant Henri Vermont, aware of the danger, has the courage to break up with his fiancée. Withdrawn to the countryside, they eventually recover.
On a Marseille film set, a street urchin who has been hired as an actor is suspected when both a star and a baroness are robbed.With the help of the boy's neer do well friend the real crooks are tracked down.
Paul Cerdan
René Sabin, engineer, disappointed by failures, leaves his village in the South to go to Paris with friends. In the capital, he befriends dubious people, in particular Alex Krakow who does not disdain shady business. Then comes the war. René is mobilized then returns to the country, and finds with joy his fiancée.
le mari
A couple of refugees arrives in a village: he is a cabinet maker, she's pregnant and the innkeeper refuses to give them a room; they wind up in the cowshed of a farm where she gives birth to her baby, the very night of Christmas.
Jojo, young worker
The joys and miseries of the inhabitants of a building in a Parisian district.
Hamon
The voyages of Pierre Savorgnan de Brassa through Africa. This great explorer, the founder of Brazzaville (Congo), was born in Italy but chose France as his motherland.
L'Ablette
A wealthy banker, bored with his life, heads to the Latin Quarter of Paris where he pretends to be a struggling artist. He falls in love with a student from the Sorbonne and moves into the same boarding house as her while continuing his pretence of poverty.
Gus
Barnes, the mate of the 'Portland', is the object of the hate of the whole ship's crew. His mistress is murdered shortly before the departure and suspicion naturally falls on him. Some time later, Jeff Cooper, the skipper, falls to his death in the middle of the night. Once again Barnes is suspected and the mate has to resort to force to maintain his authority on board. During the stopover, Barnes is interrogated and finally cleared. He is even appointed captain of the 'Portland' in replacement of Jeff and can marry his best friend's daughter.
Le télégraphiste
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.
Two campers meet two young girls in the Landes. Love will bloom, with its heartbreaks.
Griffon
An officer saves the life of a foreign prince who is in France to buy seaplanes, while pursued by his enemies.
Marianne's friend
Prince Sacha studies in Paris and cares more for Marianne than about Silistrie, the country his family was exiled from. But Chautard, a French financier, who has business there (the country is rich in oil), wouldn't mind a little political stability. So why not restore the ancient royal family to the throne? But is Prince Sacha up to his role ? And will Marianne make a suitable princess?
Le matelot Calas
The scene of action embraces Tangier, Toulon and the Mediterranean, where Pierre Fresnay, Rolf Wanka and Kim Peacock, cast as captains of French, German and English boats, respectively, unite to rescue the passengers of a neutral boat that is about to be engulfed in a cloud of poison smoke released by a smuggling ship.
Hercule, a young peasant, inherits a Parisian newspaper with a large circulation. The editor-in-chief, Vasco, takes advantage of his ignorance to make corruption prevail. But Hercules gradually realizes the role that we make him play.
After serving in the trenches of World War I, Jean Diaz recoils with such horror that he renounces love and personal pleasure to immerse himself in scientific research, seeking a machine to prevent war. He thinks he has succeeded, but the government subverts his discovery, and Europe slides with seeming inevitability toward World War II. In desperation, Diaz summons the ghosts of the war dead from the graves and fields of France to give silent, accusing protest.
un soldat
Commander d'Espinac is found murdered. Having argued the day before the murder with Captain Bruchot, he is accused. The captain will have to conduct his own investigation if he wants to clear himself. His suspicions will fall on one of the three officers attached to his unit.
A commander suspects his wife of infidelity, when she turns to a subordinate officer to help her against someone threatening to blackmail her about her troubled past.
A high school in the thirties: most of the students are leaving for the Easter holidays. However, one of them,Brassier, an A -student ,stays for sentimental reasons. He is desperately in love with the principal's wife who does not want to cheat on her husband, and, above all, does not want the young man to ruin his good prospects. On a night he calls on her, a theft is committed, in the principal's office. Although completely innocent, the good lad stands accused. He's got an alibi, but it would compromise the reputation of the woman he is in love with.
Maryse blackmails her former lovers by threatening to mention their names in her memoirs. But a real blackmailer appears and cashes the checks for him.
A young girl has left her family and lives as best she can on the generosity of her lovers. A naval officer introduces her to Toulon in a special environment which provides companions to sailors on leave. After some setbacks, she finds love and protection with a doctor who marries her.
An ex-businessman, ruined and reduced to living under bridges, uses the name of one of his companions in misfortune, Rothchild, to organize a vast scam.