Simone Simon

A video essay by filmmaker Constantine Nasr.

Images and sounds expose the duality of Portugal during the days of WW2: a peaceful, god-loving, rural country, providing an escape route for over one hundred thousand European refugees to the Americas; and a political and cultural elite that disguised their Nazi inclinations just enough to play its neutral role in international politics.

The newsreel series Jornal Português (1938-1951) was produced for the Secretariat of National Propaganda (SPN/SNI) by the "Portuguese Newsreel Society" (SPAC), under the technical supervision of António Lopes Ribeiro. It was conceived and employed as part of the propaganda machinery of Salazar's regime. Screened in cinema theatres prior to the main feature film, each issue of Jornal had approximately ten minutes in length and covered a variety of official government acts, national political news, major sports events and other assorted social and cultural affairs. Jornal Português is not only an indispensable document for the history of Estado Novo's propaganda, but also an unparalleled audiovisual archive of 1940s Portugal.

Leading man Michel Piccoli plays Pierre, a young musician who briefly catches sight of a beautiful woman dressed in blue and soon spends all of his time trying to track her down. After roaming the streets of Paris in search of the mystery woman, he recruits an old friend to help find her.

A 1965 episode of the French television program Cinéastes de notre temps, featuring interviews with many of film director Max Ophuls’s collaborators

Director William Fairchild's 1956 British comedy takes a peek into the private lives of various performers employed as extras in a new film that's currently shooting.

Tapioca, a small-time thief, hides out in an elegant apartment, where he is soon joined by Cascarilla, one of his apprentices who has become better than his master. When the owners arrive home, the latter offers the wife a bunch of love letters she has written to various lovers for ten million.

Three stories about the pleasure. The first one is about a man hiding his age behind a mask to keep going to balls and fancying women - pleasure and youth. Then comes the long tale of Mme Tellier taking her girls (whores) to the country for attending her niece's communion - pleasure and purity. And lastly, Jean the painter falling in love with his model - pleasure and death.

"Olivia" captures the awakening passions of an English adolescent sent away for a year to a small finishing school outside Paris. The innocent but watchful Olivia develops an infatuation for her headmistress, Mlle. Julie, and through this screen of love observes the tense romance between Mlle. Julie and the other head of the school, Mlle. Cara, in its final months.

An all-knowing interlocutor guides us through a series of affairs in Vienna, 1900. A soldier meets an eager young lady of the evening. Later he has an affair with a young lady, who becomes a maid and does similarly with the young man of the house. The young man seduces a married woman. On and on, spinning on the gay carousel of life.

Women Without Names (Italian:Donne senza nome) is 1950 Italian drama film directed by Géza von Radványi and starring Simone Simon, Vivi Gioi and Françoise Rosay.[1] It is set in a displaced persons camp after the Second World War. It was made at Cinecittà in Rome.

The story of a harbor signalman who retrieves a suitcase full of money after witnessing a murder, fails to report it to the police, and finds himself the object of murderous and mercenary interest.

Petrus, a Montmartre photographer, is accidentally wounded by Migo, a dancer at the Frou Frou night club, when she is trying to shoot her faithless lover Rodrigue, a counterfeiter. Though Petrus tries to reconcile the lovers, Migo lands up with him after Rodrigue is finally killed by another jealous dancer.

In occupied France during the Franco-Prussian War, a young French laundress shares a coach ride with several of her condescending social superiors. But when a Prussian officer holds the coach over, social standings are leveled and integrity and spirit are put to the test.

A young girl rents an apartment from a man who has recently enlisted in the Marines. The trouble is that he's given out keys to a half-dozen of his friends, and they all keep dropping in.

Amy, the young, friendless daughter of Oliver and Alice Reed, befriends her father's late first wife and an aging, reclusive actress.

The "Eleven Brooklyn Bombshells," a band led by Mickey Monroe ('Dennis O'Keefe (I)' ), are stranded in Tahiti at the time of the fall of France to the Nazis. Suzette "Suzie" Durand (Simone Simon). a French-American girl singing in a nightclub is consumed with a desire to go to the United States. Things go from bad to worse for the band,. and they are faced with the necessity of either taking a girl singer into the group,which they all regard as bad luck, or starving. The band insists that she be dropped as soon as they can earn enough to catch a bot home. But Mickey falls in love with Suzie, and smuggles her on board the ship.

Serbian fashion designer Irena Dubrovna and American marine engineer Oliver Reed meet in Central Park, fall in love, and marry after a brief courtship; but Irena won't consummate the union for fear that she will turn into a panther compelled to kill her lover, pursuant to a belief harbored by her home village.

Farmer Jabez Stone, about to lose his land, agrees to sell his soul to the devil, known as Mr. Scratch, who gives Jabez seven years to enjoy the fruits of his sale before he collects. Over that time, Jabez pays off his debts and helps many neighboring farmers, then becomes an advocate for the upstanding Sen. Daniel Webster. When Jabez's contract with Mr. Scratch concludes, he desperately turns to Webster to represent him in a trial for his soul.

Cavalcade D'Amour is divided into three sections, each depicting a romance occurring within the walls of the Chateau de Champs. Legend has it that whoever marries in the Chateau is doomed to an unhappy life. This proves to be the case in 1639 and 1839, but the heroine of the 1939 segment, Corinne Luchaire, is determined to break the jinx. She is convinced that she will prove an unsuitable bride for Claude Dauphin, and he is likewise convinced that he will turn out to be an inadequate groom. But the couple's respective families will not be dissuaded, and the marriage takes place as scheduled? with unexpectedly happy results!

On board a train bound for the port city of Le Havre, France, railroad stationmaster Roubard murders Grandmorin, who seduced his beautiful young wife, Severine. Engineer Jacques Lantier, stuck in Le Havre while the train is being repaired, also begins a passionate affair with Severine, who tries to entice the handsome stranger to murder her controlling husband. However, Lantier has a secret urge of his own that changes everything.

This short shows how Hollywood gets ready for the world premiere of an "important" movie. The film celebrated here is Marie Antoinette (1938), which had its premiere at the Carthay Circle Theatre. We see the street leading to the theatre transformed to suggest a garden that might be seen in a French palace. This includes the placement of trees and other foliage, as well as large statues along the route. Grandstands are set up so fans can see their favorite stars as they arrive for the premiere. Finally, the proverbial "galaxy of stars" arrives in their limousines. Fanny Brice and Pete Smith make remarks at the microphone set up on the carpet outside the theatre.

Two young men try to wrest their father from the clutches of a gold digger but by mistake think the woman is a young nightclub singer with whom they both fall in love.

As part of their public feud, Bandleader Bernie pretends a girl singer is no good so columnist Winchell promotes her in his column.

A Parisian sewer worker longs for a rise in status and a beautiful wife. He rescues a girl from the police, lives with her in a barren flat on the seventh floor, and then marches away to war.

Three young women in Budapest share living quarters while searching for romance.

When a busybody teacher in a girls' finishing school finds a love letter from a student to an unknown man, a minor scandal erupts.

Sylvie, a rich girl, learns at the same time the death and the ruin of her father. Forced to find work in Paris, she is given shelter by a medical student who soon falls for her. Another young man falls in love with her. When her benefactor gets ill and finally dies, Sylvie refuses to give the other man her heart out of faithfulness for the dearly departed. But youth commands and after a time love -but not oblivion - triumphs.

In 1913, in Russia, a widower hides from his daughter that he is butler in a restaurant of rendezvous. She meets a banker who seeks to seduce her and takes her to this restaurant. The father, knowing the decadent life of this client, immediately sends his daughter back home. The pure love that her piano teacher gives her will allow the girl to console herself for her disillusions.

A handsome but penniless young man takes a summer job as a swimming instructor in a picturesque Alpine lake resort. He falls in love with a young heiress who is staying there with her father, but he also grabs the attention of tomboyish Puck who lives on the other side of the lake and who saves him from drowning one foggy night. Further havoc is caused by the arrival of Eric's old sweetheart whose husband is wanted by the police.

A woman steals to have enough money to please her husband. Her nephew, madly in love with her, reports this to a detective who catches her red handed.

The maid of a doctor, he had some canvases he didn't care for bestowed on him once by an unknown artist, thankfully has saved them as the paintings are now worth some money and others want them.

His aunt hopes to make this young aristocrat an honored soldier. But the colonel has it out for him.Will the new recruit be able to adapt to military life?

After he is thought dead, a painter who had no success before suddenly becomes a man of repute, and a statue is even prepared in his honor.

A hotel worker who is really an aristocrat falls for a lady customer but instead of getting married he prefers to stay at work and get what female company he can from the staff.

An unemployed youth pretends to be the long lost son of an elderly industrialist but after helping the man with his business decides to confess his dishonesty and go away.

A bureaucratic civil servant is annoyed by the spoiled daughter of a rich chocolate maker, but lands up marrying her.

A singer who is believed dead returns with a decidedly different appearance. He has been in Russia and has lost his memory. But his wife still loves him.

Célestin, the organist of a convent, has written and composed a light operetta under the name of Floridor. One day, the Mother Superior asks him to chaperone one of the boarders, Denise de Flavigny, who is returning home to get married. Now, Denise, for all her goody goody looks, soon proves as saucy as can be. Things get even more complicated when Célestin starts courting Corinne, the star of his operetta, to the great displeasure of a commander of dragons, the young woman's lover. Worse, the latter is none other than the Mother Superior's brother... To say nothing of Lieutenant Fernand de Champlatreux, who happens to fall in love with Denise, his fiancée that he has never seen before...!

Two different sales agents named Max Durand live at the same address. One of them pretends to be the other so he make the money and get the girl that he wants.