Jean Lagache

Three friends navigate mid-life crises: a blocked writer, a disillusioned doctor, and a charming man facing bankruptcy and divorce. As their struggles strain friendships, a younger man captures the attention of one friend's wife, complicating their lives further.

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Vienna, 1906. A passionate love story develops between Franz Lobheiner and the young Christine. Lobheiner is, however, currently seeing the married Baroness von Eggersdorf. Upon learning of his wife's infidelity, the Baron von Eggersdorf provokes a duel with Lobheiner. But the former is no longer a real threat to the Baron. Lobheiner is now passionately in love with Christine. How will this love quartet end?

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Charles Fouquet, the Minister of Family Affairs, is having a hard time. His wife Olympe, although not that young, is expecting a baby. His daughter Annie, as for her, is pregnant by her fiance. And let's not forget Georges, Fouquet's son, who has seduced Natacha, his close (too close!) collaborator. As if that were not enough, a former mistress of Charles' comes and reveals to him the existence of a son he knew nothing about. But Charles is a man of action and he is not so easily deterred: he WILL take action against this abundance of offspring.

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Véronique Lanier runs one of the most highly rated haute couture houses in Paris. Her first partner is her husband Pierre, who has left aside a promising artist career to design the styles which make their firm a success. The trouble is that Véronique lives only for her job and does not allow herself -and her husband for that matter - a moment's respite. In Cannes, Pierre meets Wanda, a young singer with strange, fascinating eyes. The frustrated husband falls for her but gradually realizes that the light mercurial creature cannot possibly fulfill him. Véronique, feeling miserable, understands she is on the wrong track. She promises Pierre that she will make efforts to reconcile work and married life. Véronique and Pierre will live and work together again, each one forgiving the other for their faults.

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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.

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Director Jean Delannoy's immediate followup to his brilliant Les Jeux sont Faits was the more conventional Aux Yeux du Souvenir (aka Souvenir and To the Eyes of Memory). The film is based on a true story, wherein an France airliner managed to survive a journey from Rio De Janeiro to Dakar with two of its engines incapacitated. To this already intensely dramatic situation has been added a romantic subplot involving Claire Magny (Michele Morgan) and Jacques Forester (Jean Marais). The love story adds very little to the film; fortunately, neither does it detract from the film's overall quality. As was the case with many French productions of the 1940s, Aux Yeux du Souvenir benefits immeasurably from the Wagnerian musical score by Georges Auric.

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At the battle of Solferino Joseph von Trotta, a lieutenant in the Slovenian infantry, is wounded while saving the life of the young Austrian Emperor Franz-Joseph I. The Emperor rewards him by elevating him in society to a position quite out of keeping with his social rank, and which entirely alienates him from his farming background: Joseph gets promoted to the rank of captain, and is made a member of the nobility. Years later Joseph von Trotta accidentally finds a description of the battle that changed his life in a text-book belonging to his son Franz. Enraged at the over-emotional, patriotic and sentimental way in which the Emperor's rescue at the hands of "the Hero of Solferino" is depicted, he lodges a complaint at the Imperial Court.

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