Henri Decoin

Danielle Darrieux - icon and actress of the century: as a 16-year-old, the French actress perfectly embodied what we would call an "It Girl" today. She conquered Hollywood at a young age with elegance and charm. She defied the taboos of patriarchal society. The documentary takes a look back at Darrieux's 80-year career.

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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.

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During World War II a young Frenchmen sees his brother killed in Alsace by a German officer. He vows revenge on all Germans, but after the War he is conscripted into the French Army and sent to Indochina. There he meets his brother's killer under strange circumstances.

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A young veterinarian falls in love with a strange woman, a former explorer who might be a Voodoo priestess, after he comes to help her ailing cheetah. She begs him to return to Africa with her, but he doesn’t want to leave his wife. Soon his wife finds herself plagued by a series of bizarre accidents.

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In L'Alpe d'Huez, Élisabeth falls in love with Christian, who refuses to marry her, claiming that marriage is a crime against love. When she finds him in the company of another woman, Élisabeth breaks up with the young man. Later, she meets him again and becomes pregnant.

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France under the Occupation. Executed for treason against the Resistance, Cora, code-named "La Chatte", was left for dead. Recovered and cared for by the Germans, Dr. von Hollwitz brainwashed her to control her and use her as a counter-espionage. In the spring of 1944, her escape was faked so that she could resume contact with the Resistance. She has to scupper the mission of Charles, an engineer with the SNCF, to blow up a train loaded with V1s intended to power the launch pads set up on the French coast to bomb London. But at the last moment, La Chatte regains her lucidity.

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Walter, a reporter and photographer, meets Catherine in a train. The young lawyer recently gained an acquittal for a man who killed his alcoholic father to save his mother. Campaigning against alcoholism, she asks Walter to help her unmask a wine merchant engaged in shady practices.

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The holdup of the bank is a success. All happened according to plan. Now, Cyril Gad and his four accomplices must secure an alibi. What better place than a prison cell? As a result the five gangsters have themselves arrested on minor charges and start waiting until they are released. Unfortunately three of them die mysteriously, another one is openly murdered. The only man still alive, Tony, is scared. Easy to understand why...

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Lola, the wife of arms dealer Pedro Wassewich, is attracted to Ludovic, a young painter who turns out to be the emissary of a notorious gangster. He claims to have been sent by the latter to pick up a shipment. In fact, it's the police who, behind the scenes, orchestrate the operation to catch Wassewich red-handed.

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A GI on furlough attends a Folies-Bergères show. He falls in love with a dancer, Claudie, the star of the theater.

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Madame de Montespan, the Maîtresse-en-titre of Louis XIV, has been in disgrace since the King set eyes on a younger beauty, Marie-Angélique Scorailles. Having had enough of the situation, the rejected mistress decides to visit La Voisin, a woman known as a fortune teller, a doctor, a midwife and who is also said to arrange black masses and sell poisons. Some time later Marie-Angélique, now Duchess of Fontanges, dies mysteriously aged only twenty...

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Henri, the Man from Nantes, comes back to his country after a successful stay in the United States, where he was working for Liski, the drug dealer. With the fame of being a tough guy preceding him, he sets himself to the task of knowing why the French operations were not so profitable - and soon he is master of all links of the organization. He can now get it honed to perfection - or destroy it. Only... the Police are following his every step.

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Francois Roques, a power-and-money-mad editor of a Paris newspaper invites four women to a housewarming at his penthouse apartment. He plans on one of them to meet death by means of a loose railing on the balcony.

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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.

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The renowned theatre manager, Paul Rémy, is accused by his general secretary Andrieux of having killed his partner. On the advice of his wife Mona, Paul goes into hiding in a psychiatric hospital to escape from the police. But Andrieux seduces Mona who then turns against her husband.

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In a little town with a renowned college a female student is found after she was hogtied and strangled to death. Inspector Marco is assigned to catch the murderer.

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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.

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Renaud, a young student who is camping alone at the moment, has a dream one night, in which the woman of his dreams appears. When he wakes up the next morning, he cannot believe his eyes: the creature of the dream is there by the side of the road, in the flesh! The woman accepts to drive Renaud to Montargis but it is only after she has dropped him off there that he realizes that what he experienced for her was love at first sight. He then decides not to return to Paris but to try and find the wonderful stranger in Montargis. He discovers that the woman's name is Clara and that she is the member of a drama company.

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A circus daredevil is the next victim of a danger-seducing woman who tricks him into a potentially deadly stunt after he attempted to kill her.

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Julien Couturier and his wife Louise, a young couple from Auvergne who have come to Paris to try their luck for the first time in their lives, become the owners of the "Café du Cadran" ("Clockface Cafe"). On opening day, they meet the people who will become their clientele. It's a busy place, with regular customers served by two waiters, Jules and Victor. While Julien is comfortable in his role as boss, Louise doesn't quite get used to this urban world, where everything moves faster, especially human feelings. She often misses Marcenait, the village in Auvergne where she and her husband ran the "Café du Commerce". Mr. Luigi, a café customer and violinist who performs at the "Café de Paris", has undertaken Louise's cultural education. He teaches her how to dress and do her hair, while recounting his musical successes and travels, skilfully playing on his undeniable seductiveness...

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Pursued by the police, Saget usurps the identity of a man who was returning to his town after having made his fortune in the United States. Under this new name, he deceives his compatriots with the exception of a doctor and the savage Isabelle. During an explanation Saget understands that Isabelle secretly admires him. She denounces him and Saget surrenders without a fight. Thus he ruins all his prestige with the young Amazon.

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Maloin, a maritime station guard, spends his nights at the port signal box. One night, he becomes the witness of a murder: for a simple suitcase smuggled, the altercation between the two men turns to drama. While the first falls and drowns, the second flees. Maloin, instead of warning the police, decides to dive in and recover the suitcase...which contains more than 3 million in small denominations! That's when the trouble begins...

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Based on the short story by Georges Simenon. Annoying Annette is bent on seducing Maurice, a handsome lawyer who has his eye on a haughty American Myriam who is running after bashful Bernard. The story takes place in hotels, prisons, and music-making apartments in Cannes.

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Micheline Chevassu is a young, naive woman living in an orphanage. Through classified ads, she has a date with an unknown man. She escapes from the orphanage to go to it, dreaming of the Prince Charming. But comes Nicolas Rougemont, an unattractive middle-aged man... He pretends not to be the author of the letters, who could not come...

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Married to Karl Ammer, the station master of Thaya, a Hungarian quiet village, Anita is a pretty young peasant who feels deeply bored. She dreams of another life while watching the daily express trains to Budapest. An incident will force her to leave her province: she has to go to Budapest to attend the funeral of an aunt and receive a share of the inheritance. After completing the formalities, Anita misses the train to go back home and then she finds herself alone in the capital.

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Lydia (Danielle Darrieux) is a student, poor and orphaned, who pretends to be the daughter of a famous writer.

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French-language version of Port Arthur (1936), a German language film (q.v.) co-produced by German, French and Czechoslovakian film interests. About espionage, action and romance in the Russo-Japanese War, as the conflict threatens Russian naval officer Boris Ranewsky and his Japanese wife Youki.

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Espionage, war and romance in the Far East in 1904: Russian naval officer Boris Ranewsky marries Youki, the sister of a fanatical Japanese officer, but war is imminent.

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A gypsy has cast a spell on Livette, the fiancee of Renaud, the proud guardian nicknamed, King of the Camargue. Renaud wants to punish the witch who frightened Livette. But then, meeting the gypsy, he is taken under the strange spell that emanates from her. She arranges to meet him in an isolated hut in the middle of the muddy ponds. Livette, warned of her betrothed betrayal, goes to the place where she is to meet the infidel. But Renaud changed the stakes that line the only fordable passage. And Livette dies, even more from Renaud's betrayal.

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Didier Méreuil, affectionately called Poliche, is in love with Rosine, a beautiful girl, so he does everything to please her. She does not love him, and accepts a seductive airplane pilot who proposes to her. One day, she discovers that the funny man is just a front behind which there is a serious Didier. She will try to make up and live with him - but the gap between them is already too large.

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Toboggan, the 1934 Henri Decoin French boxing sports romantic love triangle melodrama (about a washed up boxer who makes a comeback for a sexy dancer, but she is two-timing him, and she brings her boyfriend into the arena during the climactic boxing match) starring Georges Carpentier (real life heavyweight boxing champion), Arlette Marchal, Paul Amiot, John Anderson, and Raymond Cordy. Note that because Carpentier was a real life boxer, he naturally was able to do his own boxing scenes, and the producer of the movie interwove footage of Carpentier from his actual matches into the film.

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An obscure mechanic falls in love with a an champion pilot.

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Georget is a happy-go-luck seafarer who'd rather sing than work -- or be faithful to his wife. Together with his sailor pal Marius, they decide to cheat on their spouses by frequenting the dives and joints in every town where their ship drops anchor. The boys are certain, however, that their wives would never behave in a similar fashion. Upon returning home, of course, they discover that their better halves are just as sexually irresponsible as their hubbies.

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A legendary French singer, missing for years and presumed dead, returns with no memory, his face hidden, his voice unmistakable. The woman who never stopped loving him clings to hope, while those who once betrayed him begin to fear he remembers everything.

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A sailor, who meets a lovely music hall singer during a police raid, falls in love. In a contest at a fair, he defeats a former boxing champ. The ex-champ trains the sailor to become a boxer. After he wins the French championship, the sailor is swayed by easy money and a sultry coquette. The singer goes on a singing tour, and the sailor falls into decadence. He enters the European championship spiritually empty and in bad condition.

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While engaged in the six-day Vel d'Hiv event, a cyclist is concerned about the behaviour of his wife, whom he believes to be unfaithful.

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In 1925 what may have been the first cycling film was made, Le Roi de la Pédale starring the popular comedy actor Biscot, and with scenes shot on the Tour de France and also with Henri Decoin as a screenwriter.

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