Michel Kelber

Birth : 1908-01-01, Kiev, Russian Empire [now Ukraine]

Death : 1996-10-23

Movies

Is There a Frenchman in the House?
Director of Photography
An official's earlier rise to power had some sordid aspects that are about to be uncovered by the death of his uncle. While he is trying to contain any potential scandal, the man becomes enamored of the daughter of his uncle's maid. This new romance inspires him to forget worries about a public image and focus on a new life -- not any easy objective when unsavory friends and foes have their own agendas in mind.
The Lonely Woman
Director of Photography
Teresa hopes that her social climbing ambitions will be fulfilled by her young son, Jacy. When he learns that his mother has started an affair, Jacy leaves home and embarks on a series of short-term liaisons with several women. He ends up by marrying a retarded but incredibly rich woman. His mother's hopes have finally been realised. Meanwhile, Teresa has herself found love and happiness, with a schoolteacher.
I Am a Dancer
Director of Photography
Documentary about the dancer Rudolf Nureyev.
¡Se armó el belén!
Director of Photography
An old priest, who has old ideas, is intended to exercise the apostolate in a neighborhood in the suburbs of Madrid. There the revolutionary climate and anti-religious character of the congregation thwarts all his attempts to attract them. The Archbishop admonishes him and asks to renew his methods, using the example of a young priest of a modern parish. The old priest tries to apply in his environment what he has seen in the parish model, setting off a chain of events.
Blood in the Bullring
Director of Photography
Like every night, Manuel remembers the old days of glory, when after the war he was a famous bullfighter. He and his friend Juan were the fashionable couple. Now Juan is a prominent businessman in bullfighting. But Manuel's feelings toward him have changed radically: an inexplicable hated seizes him when someone mentions his name. It has been more than twenty years since that afternoon, when Manuel was bullfighting and fell to the ground.
Un día es un día
Director of Photography
Phèdre
Cinematography
In the absence of her royal husband Theseus, thought to be dead, Phaedra declares her love to Hippolyte, Theseus's son from a previous marriage.
The Story of a Three-Day Pass
Cinematography
Turner (Harry Baird), an African American soldier stationed in France, is granted a promotion and a three-day leave from base by his casually racist commanding officer and heads to Paris, where he finds whirlwind romance with a white woman (Nicole Berger)—but what happens to their love when his furlough is over?
Le Franciscain de Bourges
Cinematography
Albert is a Franciscan monk and a medical orderly at a monastery in France. Although he is German, the kindly monk helps hide French resistance members. Albert tries to maintain the delicate balance between the warring factions by helping out the afflicted and not getting involved in political ideology.
Johnny Banco
Director of Photography
A hustler of humble origins steals $200,000 from a gangster and heads to Monte Carlo.
Nights of Farewell
Director of Photography
Paris, the middle of the XIX century. Young Marius Petipa is going on a long journey to St. Petersburg, where he is invited to become the first dancer. He doesn't know that his life will develop both happily and dramatically, and his work will be the glory and pride of Russian ballet.
La famille Hernandez
Director of Photography
Depicts the everyday life of the Pieds Noirs, those people who lived on the other side of the Mediterranean.
El escándalo
Director of Photography
Mata Hari, Agent H21
Director of Photography
This French version of the notorious spy's life centers less on her romantic escapades, and more on those that reveal the person she actually was during WW I when her German superiors ordered her to seduce the French captain Trintignant so she can steal classified papers from him. Instead she falls in love with him, blows the cover, and ends up convicted of espionage and shot. (AllMovie)
In the French Style
Director of Photography
A young American art student must decide whether to stay in Paris with her boyfriend or go back to the U.S. when her wealthy father arrives to bring her back.
As if It Were Raining
Director of Photography
A writer stumbles into a job as a mob enforcer.
Lulu
Director of Photography
A 14-year-old girl is caught while trying to pick a doctor's pocket. The doctor ends up taking her in and turning her into a sophisticated lady, whom he marries off to a wealthy man.
Vu du pont
Cinematography
Eddie Carbone, a Brooklyn longshoreman is unhappily married to Beatrice and unconsciously in love with Catherine, the niece that they have raised from childhood. Into his house come two brothers, illegal immigrants, Marco and Rodolpho. Catherine falls in love with Rudolpho; and Eddie, tormented but unable to admit even to himself his quasi-incestuous love, reports the illegal immigrants to the authorities.
Rogelia
Director of Photography
The Nina B. Affair
Director of Photography
A businessman who lives from blackmailing begins to be blackmailed by his own wife who hates him.
It Means That Much to Me
Director of Photography
Eddie Constantine stars as a reporter mixed up in the spy world in this routine espionage actioner by first-time director Pierre Grasset. After taking some illicit photos for a new story he is working on, Eddie (Constantine) is coerced into doing a job for the French Secret Service. There is a mole in the French missile sites who is passing on classified information, and Eddie is enlisted as bait to draw the culprit -- or culprits -- out. Along the way, he finds himself running for his life, fighting, and romancing until the final denouement.
Jack of Spades
Director of Photography
Bombs on Monte Carlo
Director of Photography
In Monte Carlo, a captain tries to raise the money to pay his crew at the gaming table, and meets and falls in love with a Queen.
El Litri y su sombra
Director of Photography
Biopic about Miguel Báez "El Litri", a descendant of two generations of bullfighters: his older brother touched the glory before he died at twenty years after being gored and complicated by gangrene. His father begged everyone until the last minute that they keep him away from the arena, but "El Litri" knew since childhood that his destiny was to succeed in the world of the bulls
Katia
Director of Photography
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.
John Paul Jones
Director of Photography
The career of Revolutionary War naval hero John Paul Jones, from his youth in Scotland through his service to Catherine the Great of Russia.
Incognito
Cinematography
Bob Stanley was an American secret agent during World War II in France. After the war Stanley returns to France as a consul. In reality, he works for the FBI, to roll up the organization that manufactures fake U.S. dollars. A violent confrontation is insurmountable.
Lovers of Paris
Director of Photography
Young, handsome, dashing but cynical, Octave Mouret arrives in Paris, determined to conquer the belles of the capital.
Bitter Victory
Director of Photography
During the second world war, two British officers, Brand and Leith, who have never seen combat are assigned a vital mission. Their relationship and the operation are complicated by the arrival of Brand's wife, who had a tryst with Leith years earlier.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Director of Photography
Paris, 1482. Today is the festival of the fools, taking place like each year in the square outside Cathedral Notre Dame. Among jugglers and other entertainers, Esmeralda, a sensuous gypsy, performs a bewitching dance in front of delighted spectators. From up in a tower of the cathedral, Frollo, an alchemist, gazes at her lustfully. Later in the night, Frollo orders Quasimodo, the deformed bell ringer and his faithful servant, to kidnap Esmeralda. But when the ugly freak comes close to her is touched by the young woman's beauty...
Good Evening Paris
Director of Photography
Main Street
Director of Photography
A small town in Spain, October 1955. Isabel, a 35-year-old dreamer who feels like a failure because she is not married yet, becomes the new target of a group of soulless pranksters.
The Ambassador's Daughter
Cinematography
While on leave in Paris, a G.I. pursues an ambassador's daughter. Meanwhile she's out to prove to her father that soldiers can be gentlemen, too.
Los tres amores de Lola
Director of Photography
Flamenco artist in Mexico draws attention from three suitors.
The Wicked Go to Hell
Cinematography
Making his directorial debut, Robert Hossein also assumes the leading role, playing an escaped convict. Hossein and his fellow escapees cross the path of Marina Vlady, with whom they all fall in love. Alas for our "heroes," Vlady intends to avenge the death of her sweetheart at the hands of Hossein and his confreres. Not only do these heels go to Hell, but they do so with a spectacular flourish. Les Salauds Vont en Enfer was adapted by Rene Wheeler from a play by Frederic Dard.
Girl on the Third Floor
Director of Photography
A Parisian reporter tries to exonerate a fugitive neighbor of charges he murdered his wife.
French Cancan
Director of Photography
Nineteenth-century Paris comes vibrantly alive in Jean Renoir’s exhilarating tale of the opening of the world-renowned Moulin Rouge. Jean Gabin plays the wily impresario Danglard, who makes the cancan all the rage while juggling the love of two beautiful women—an Egyptian belly-dancer and a naive working girl turned cancan star.
The Beautiful Otero
Director of Photography
An Italo-French biopic about one of the most famous women of Belle Époque, Spanish-born dancer and actress, star of Folies-Bèrgere: Carolina Otero.
Le Rouge et le Noir
Director of Photography
It's no holds barred for Julian in pursuit of upward mobility. Although expected to channel career aspirations into the Church of the post-Napoleonic era, his intensely romantic liaisons propel him forward at a pace he cannot control.
Flesh and the Woman
Cinematography
In this romance, a jilted lawyer joins the French Foreign Legion to help him forget his faithless love. While in the desert he espies a village beauty who is the exact double of his true-love.
Flesh and the Woman
Director of Photography
In this romance, a jilted lawyer joins the French Foreign Legion to help him forget his faithless love. While in the desert he espies a village beauty who is the exact double of his true-love.
The Secrets of the Bed
Cinematography
Four-episode Franco-Italian omnibus film. Four men from different national and cultural background take refuge in a cabin after being sidetracked by bad weather on their way to conference.
Flesh and Desire
Cinematography
Giuseppe is accused of killing his employer Matthias who is actually in a hospital with amnesia.
Nadie lo sabrá
Director of Photography
The Lovers of Midnight
Director of Photography
Marcel, rich and alone for Christmas, invite Françoise to celebrate whim him. Soon, the fairy tale turns into a bad dream.
Bal Tabarin
Director of Photography
Story of a girl who witnesses murder of notorious international jewel thief. Afraid that the gang will attack her, she flees to Paris.
The Great Galeoto
Director of Photography
A young musician and dreamy, called "Ernesto", is forced to live in Madrid to die his father, in the house of executor of the testament, "don Julio Villamil", who is married to actress Teresa Labisbal, of which "Ernesto Acedo" was enamored platonic. Although the conduct of the young is flawless, a third person causes slander which oblige "don Julio" to fight in mourning to death.
Love and Desire
Director of Photography
A French crew is working on location in Spain. But when they want to film a scene in which Gérardn the male star is supposed to be swimming across a river, the matinée idol proves water-shy and the director decides to double him. The one that replaces him is Antonio, a local fisherman. The latter does the job so well that he is chosen as a stunts man for the whole film. This does not please Lola,his fiancée; all the more as Antonio has fallen in love with Martine, the female star.
La señora de Fátima
Director of Photography
The story of the 1917 miracle of Fatima, in which the Virgin Mary appeared to three children--two girls and one boy..
The Beauty of the Devil
Director of Photography
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...
La fuente enterrada
Director of Photography
The Storm Within
Director of Photography
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.
The Queen's Lover
Director of Photography
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 ...
Devil in the Flesh
Director of Photography
In France during World War I, Marthe waits for her husband, Jacques, while he fights on the front lines. Marthe then begins a tempestuous affair with 17-year-old François, with whom she had a dalliance before marrying Jacques. Jealous François struggles with the fact that Marthe is married, while she tries to prove her devotion to her young, hotheaded lover. Things become even more complex when Marthe becomes pregnant with Jacques' baby.
White Mission
Director of Photography
Arriving at a Guinean Christian mission, a young priest is told by his elder ones the story of Father Javier, another young missioner who restlessly fought to convert a villain not only for God's sake, but also for sentimental reasons.
El doncel de la reina
Director of Photography
Bambú
Director of Photography
Alejandro is a young composer from Madrid who, overwhelmed by a sentimental and artistic failure, decides to enlist as a volunteer soldier and go to war-torn Cuba, where he befriends Antonio, who becomes his best friend.
El fantasma y doña Juanita
Director of Photography
Fearing that her niece Rosita will abandon her true love and enter into a marriage of convenience, doña Juanita tells her the story of when, many years ago, she fell in love with an accountant who worked in a circus.
Castillo de naipes
Director of Photography
El escándalo
Director of Photography
In 1860s Madrid, Fabián Conde is a dissolute young man who drives his dishonored identity into a life of seduction and dueling. When he eventually falls in love, changes for good and finds the truth about his family, his two opposite friends give him contrasted advice on what he should do. He chooses and time goes by. Then something unexpected happens that will put him on the brim of loosing everything he has fought for.
Goyescas
Director of Photography
Intriga
Director of Photography
Personal Column
Director of Photography
To try solving the strange disappearances of 11 young Parisian women, the police obtain the services of Adrienne Charpentier, friend of the latest missing person.
Savage Brigade
Director of Photography
The duel between a Czarist general and a lieutenant, over the general's wife, is postponed with war approaching. Years later, the rivals meet again but the general realizes his wife has been faithful to him after all.
Pasha's Wives
Director of Photography
Mireille, a Frenchwoman, marries a westernized Turkish diplomat and, thinking that she will live a dream life in an Arabian Nights setting, follows him back to his native country, only to discover that, in a staunchly traditional society, she will not be a free woman there any longer.
Girls in Distress
Director of Photography
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.
Final Accord
Director of Photography
A famous violinist enlists in a music school in order to woo one of the students.
I Was an Adventuress
Director of Photography
Old friends of Vera Vronsky remind her of her past and try to blackmail her.
Les Nuits blanches de Saint-Pétersbourg
Director of Photography
Pozdnycheff, a young party animal, destroyed by his lightness the marital happiness of one of his childhood friends who committed suicide. Since then, he is haunted by the memory.
Dance Card
Director of Photography
After the death of her husband, Christine realizes she has possibly wasted her life by marrying him instead of the man towards whom, in her youth, she had a stronger inclination. To overcome these dreary thoughts, she decides to find out about him and the other men who danced with her during a ball that was a turning point in her life, many years ago. She pays a visit to those forgotten acquaintances one after the other; Christine is not only surprised to see how they have fared, but also discovers the impact she had, unknowingly, on the feelings and the destiny of these persons. Duvivier's American film Lydia (1941) is, to some extent, a remake of this one.
Forty Little Mothers
Director of Photography
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.
School for Coquettes
Director of Photography
Ginette, a Parisian seamstress, lives poorly but happily with her musician lover. When Count la Ferronnière offers to teach her the manners and behaviours that will open her the doors to a richer world, she quickly chooses wealth over love.
The Imperial Road
Director of Photography
An indigenous uprising in British controlled Iraq threatens the route to India, as a lobe triangle develops among the expatriates.
Zouzou
Director of Photography
Zou Zou tries to help her childhood friend prove his innocence after he's accused of murder.