Un fils Hermenault (uncredited)
파리에 사는 여러 계층의 사람들의 어느날의 사건이 그려진다. 주인공은 좀 이상스런 얘기이지만 '파리'라고 보아야 할 것이다. 펜팔 애인을 만나러 파리 시내까지 찾아온 시골처녀가 편지의 내용이 거짓말이었다는 것을 알고 실망한 채 걷고 있는데 그만 정신 이상이 된 조각가에게 살해되며 조각가는 경찰관에게 사살된다. 패션모델은 애인인 의과 대학생이 금년에도 국가시험에 실패했으므로 실망하게 된다. 미치광이 조각가를 쏜 경찰관의 유탄(流彈)으로 중상을 입게 된 공원(工員)은 시험담력(試驗膽力)이 없는 의과 대학생의 대수술로 연명을 한다. 이 공원은 동맹파업으로 일을 쉬고 있었으므로 결혼기념일의 축하 술에 취해서 들떠 있을 때였다. 무작정 고양이를 좋아하는 늙은 처녀는 고양이의 먹이를 찾아 헤매며 어느날 하루종일 파리 시내를 걸어 다닌다. 공부를 몹시 싫어하는 계집아이는 집으로 돌아가지 않고 사내아이와 센강에서 보트 놀이를 하다가 날이 저물어서 미아가 되었는데, 미치광이 조각가의 도움으로 자기 집으로 무사히 돌아간다.
Un employé de soierie
Endive-Meunier, a prosperous silk dealer from Lyon has an affair with his secretary he tries hard to keep secret. One day, he nevertheless accepts to accompany her to the seaside resort of Coeur-sur-Mer. Unfortunately for him, once there, he finds himself in the presence of Claudius Paquito, the popular barman of a fashionable club. The trouble is that the man is no other than one of his former employees he once fired for insolence...
Thanks to a bit of string-pulling by his aunt, Jean du Bois d'Ombelles, a young recruit who has blue blood in his veins, hopes to go through a nice and comfortable military service. Unfortunately he becomes Corporal Bourrache's pet aversion. Nevertheless, against all expectations, Jean ends up taking a liking for military life.
Trimballe
Thanks to a bit of string-pulling by his aunt, Jean du Bois d'Ombelles, a young recruit who has blue blood in his veins, hopes to go through a nice and comfortable military service. Unfortunately he becomes Corporal Bourrache's pet aversion. Nevertheless, against all expectations, Jean ends up taking a liking for military life.
Le Guellec
Due to financial problems, the boarding-school of Saint-Loup is on the verge of closing its doors. In desperation, Jacquelin, the headmaster, has the idea to invite former students to a fund-raising reunion. Among the alumni, three men whose common point is to have been in love at the time with the headmaster's niece. One is a banker, the second a priest and the last one a globetrotter. All of a sudden, the peace of the assembly is disturbed: Jacquelin's niece has just been murdered.
A sensitive teen-age boy survives the brutalities of a country training school.
Corentin
Socially conscious and realistic treatment of hard working coal miners in the north of France, and a struggle between a younger and older engineer.
A young noblewoman regrets having to marry the village ironmaster for money reasons, but later comes to appreciate her new husband.
Jean is a good man who has a steady job (he is a mechanic in the village garage) and a companion named Aline. But Jean is also a guzzler and a philanderer. As a result, when a local prostitute is killed in the surroundings, he becomes at once the victim of rumor...
Hervé is a tough sea captain in command of the "Duchesse Anne", a rum-trading ship. But the sea dog hides a tender heart and he allows Marie-Douce, a poor slum girl who dreams of seeing the wide world,on board. To have her accepted by the crew, he passes her off as his niece. A seasoned master like him, wise enough to ban alcohol use on his ship, should have known better : a beautiful girl on the deck cannot but unleash the savage instincts of all those men without women.
Paul, le petit frère de Max
Abandoned children, left to their own devices and a life of danger, are adopted by a kind man.
The son of two teachers hits the road and becomes a singing success after being taken in as a protege by a kooky countess.
Jimmy
An adventurer tries to seize oil deposits in Mongolia .
Beaume
In a college, three friends form a secret society. Their objective - going to America. One night, after one of their secret meetings, one of them sees a man coming out from a wall. The next day, after he talks about it, he disappears. Then, the second one vanishes. Are they gone to their dreams? That's when the art teacher is murdered. Suspicions now are too high so the third one decides to investigate.
In 1914, during the First World War, the rich chatelaine de Boissière, with a sulphurous past, took in Jean le Barois, a young soldier lost in territory occupied by the Germans, who was none other than the son of the man she loved, then ruined. The young man, after having despised her, falls madly in love with the woman who pushed his father to suicide.
The young Papillon
Little Germaine Valcour, an adulterine child, is abandoned and taken in by a showman, Father Ballot. She becomes the consolation of the good man whose daughter has gone wrong. Madame Vaulcour died of grief while her lover, after many bad blows, takes justice into his own hands. The girl stays with her adoptive parents.
Maurice Bellanger, son fils (jeune)
After being left for another man by his wife, Charles Bellanger raises his only son to fear and suspect women. Years later, such an education is bearing fruit.
Separated by an ancestral hatred, two small villages of the South see their infant population engaging in war, while the teacher of the first village and the mayor of the second love each other.
le tricheur (petit garçon)
Life story of a charming scoundrel, with little dialogue other than the star/director's witty narration. As a boy, only he survives a family tragedy when he's deprived of supper (poisonous mushrooms!) for stealing...concluding that dishonesty pays. Through years of dabbling in crime and amusing adventures, two women appear and reappear in his life, a dazzling blonde jewel thief and a stunning brunette gambler. Finally, he meets the mysterious Charbonnier who had saved his life in World War I, leading to the surprising next phase in his career...
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.
Claudinet
The Count of Kerlor, to chastise his wife whom he believes to be unfaithful, entrusts his son to a couple of scoundrels. When he repents and wants to find the child, the carnies make their nephew sick. But the other little boy, in search of his comrade, is recognized by his reconciled parents.
Asticot
Gaston, an artist in love with an upper class English girl, accepts to stay away from her when a wealthy rival offers to pay her father's heavy debt. Broken-hearted, he leaves for France with his young servant. They join a young girl as popular musicians and tour the countryside in their way to Paris, where his former love reappears.
A student monitor in a high school in the French provinces has no control over the pupils. He is in love with the caretaker's daughter but his superior, the Dean of Discipline, is also his love rival. Now, the two men are sent on military temporary duty and irony has it that in the Army the Dean is only a private whereas the mere supervisor's rank is ... corporal!
A hero of the Paris streets is recruited for a conspiracy against Mazarin in the court of the King, but he reveals the subversive plot to Anne of Austria.
Georges Herbillon
During the First World War, before joining a squadron at the front in 1918, Herbillon (Jean-Pierre Aumont) has a liaison with Helene (Annabella), a married woman. The young man discovers that his mistress is none other than the wife of Maury (Charles Vanel), an aviator friend.
Rémy (Robert Lynen), a stolen child is adopted by a wandering singer. With him and his trained animals, Rémy travels the roads of France. But his adoptive father dies and Remy, who has knowledge of a boy who knows something of his history, sails for England to find his mother.