René Pascal

Set in 18th century France, a naive 17-year-old orphan named Benjamin is taken in by his wealthy aunt, the Countess de Valandry. There, he is seduced by a variety of women, including a few flirtatious maidservants and neighboring countesses who all want to be Benjamin's "first".

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In the seaside town of Rochefort, twin sisters Delphine and Solange dream of love and artistic fulfillment beyond their quiet lives. As sailors, artists, musicians, and chance visitors pass through town during a weekend fair, a web of near-misses and romantic longing brings ideal partners tantalizingly close—without their realizing it.

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In Haute-Provence, two rival farming clans clash over the four seasons of the year. A young lumberjack, who has gone up to Rebeillard country to fell trees, has not been heard from for several months. Concerned by his long absence, his father sets out to find him. Antonio, known as "Bouche d'or" (Golden Mouth), the man from the river, accompanied him out of friendship; the two of them toiled together for long days, but one night, at the edge of the wood, they discovered a blond woman lying on the ground, giving birth to a child: it was Clara, a young blind woman.

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Three young men are suspected of kidnapping and murdering a little boy. Most likely, two of them are really involved, but one is not. All of their pasts are questionable, riddled with violence and controversy. Neither the police nor the court can decide how to solve that puzzle.

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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.

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Gregory Iefommovich Raspoutine is a monk with healing powers and a liking for debauchery who manages to insinuate himself into the court of the Romanoffs thanks to Princess Dikvona. Being the only person able to heal he son of Czar Nicolas II and Czarina Alexandra from his hemophilia, he becomes a very powerful man, which infuriates many.A group of nobles, determined to save the monarchy, start conspiring to murder him.

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Charming, charming but unstable, Rudy is married to Lydia. He dreams of becoming a famous painter. His father-in-law offers him a contract: if he stays in the same job for at least two months, he can devote himself to painting. Under the name of his friend Ravot, Rudy is hired to teach gymnastics at a girls' college. Things soon get complicated. The jealous Lydia, who plays student, keeps an eye on her husband. The headmistress glares at him, and the arrival of the real Mme Ravot doesn't help matters. The contract is almost not honored, but as in the best comedies, everything works out.

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A young woman has a perilous affair with a General from the opposing side during the Revolutionary war.

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Appointed public prosecutor in a small provincial town, Gérard Latour befriends Delanglade, whose young wife becomes his mistress. Shortly afterwards, a fire ravages Delanglade's factory. During the ensuing investigation, the Public Prosecutor discovers the troubled past of the industrialist and his front man, Jacques Perthuis, an ex-convict. They themselves set fire to the factory to collect the insurance premium. Gérard Latour, suspecting his mistress of complicity in her husband's machinations, leaves her after a stormy argument.

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The leading coach the company of Jean Nohain make a program fails in a small village. The people immobilize the troops to force him to do the show there.

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Colette gives up her studies to become a cabaret dancer. She breaks with her fiance who does not approve of her choice.

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The daughter of a notorious smuggler is raised as a boy by her foster mother.

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At the end of the 19th century, during a ball in Joinville, on the outskirts of Paris, Georges, a former delinquent working as a carpenter, meets Marie, a young woman connected to a criminal gang.

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A tough customs man, out to get a youth smuggling tobacco into France across the Belgium border, falls for the jaded ex bar hostess the smuggler lives with.Meanwhile the young man is intrigued by another, more innocent girl.

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Now that the world conflict is over, five inseparable wartime buddies swear eternal friendship now to each other. But there's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip. Jean becomes a postman, Marcel a boxer, Roger an actor, André a student and Philippe remains what he has always been, a young man of good social standing. Roger, who can't find any role, is introduced through his singer sister Valérie, to Frédo, a shady nightclub owner.Roger soon becomes one of Frédo's henchmen. To make matters worse, he swipes Jean's fiancée, Simone. Marcel, who loses fight after fight, ends up joining Fredo's gang as well. André, who wanted to redeem the faults of his father during the Occupation, gets killed in the Indochina war. Marcel is shot down while taking part in a robbery. In her turn, Valérie is bumped off by an accomplice of Fredo and Roger is sent to jail.

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Andre Noblet, a 21-year-old French artist falls madly in love with Christine, the mother of two children. He tells Chistine he will tell all to her husband and demand her freedom. Christine learns that her husband has been carrying on a romance of his own and they have a meeting.

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Catherine, 18, loved Jean, a young accountant, who loved her in return. And yet, one morning, two policemen find their dead bodies on a stretch of waste ground. The case is obvious: the two young people have killed themselves. But why? Chief Inspector Ernest Plonche, feeling upset, decides to investigate personally.

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A merchant, without audacity with women, is dragged by a friend into the worst marital complications. His setbacks will ultimately pay him off.

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Evanella, who writes the “Horoscope” section of a major newspaper, and her brother Méristo, create with the help of a young journalist, Jean Lassère and the capital of their uncle Amédée, a “Bureau des Prédictions”. Success being expected, they manage to obtain revelations about a gang of gangsters which they publish as predictions. It is success and fortune. Jean marries the newspaper director's daughter and Evanella the director himself.

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The eccentric characters of a street from the comic designs of Andre Dubout are brought to life with human performers instead of drawings.

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Maurice Vallier, nicknamed "Ma Pomme"(which means "myself" in slang), is a cheerful man, well aware that money does not make happiness and who, of all things, prices freedom. Which is why he has become a tramp and he has never regretted his choice of life. Things go smoothly until the day he inherits a huge amount of money. He first refuses it but changes his mind when he realizes that thanks to the inheritance he can help others. Even more enticing is the fact that he must share the big money with a charming air hostess. However once he deems he has done enough good he gives up the money left and resumes his old lifestyle singing along "Ma pomme c'est moi, j'suis plus heureux qu'un roi..."

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Elsa Lundenstein is accused of having murdered her lover. The jury discusses the case vividly. All members are somehow prejudiced because of personal life experience and subsequently each member reads something different into the presented facts.

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The evocation of Paris in the 1920s mingles with the rapid rise of the irresistible Caprice, a talented singer, and her tumultuous love affair with Jeff the composer. A photographer nicknamed Bagnolet, a gentle anarchist, gently monitors the activities of Caprice, who has become Lady Paname and, in the absence of morality, makes love triumph.

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Le Havre, France, in 1949. In a town that still shows the scars of war, several friends meet up in Albert's café. One of them, Laurent, has lost his job on the docks and his marriage to Madeleine is falling apart. He knows that his wife wants to start an affair with friend, Jean Sauviot. Jean is a lonely man who is attracted to Madeleine but doesn't want to commit himself to the wife of a friend. On the day that Madeleine tells her husband that she is seeing Jean, Laurent goes looking for Jean to find an explanation. Arriving on the docks in the evening, he attacks an American sailor who looks like Jean, but the man fights back and runs away after killing Laurent accidentally. Madeleine thinks that Laurent was killed by Jean and believes that she can start a new life with her lover. The police have other ideas...

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A group of policemen look over three murder cases including a cutthroat that prays on young women, a madman that hid his deformed landlord's corpse in the floor, and a wine aficionado who buries his friend alive.

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Between eleven o’clock and midnight one evening, a notorious trafficker Jérôme Vidauban is shot whilst walking in a tunnel in Paris. The case is assigned to Inspector Carrel, who is Vidauban’s perfect double. Using his resemblance to the arch criminal, Carrel manages to infiltrate in Vidauban’s circle of acquaintances and contacts. He becomes embroiled in a bizarre web of intrigue and discovers no shortage of possible murder suspects, all of whom appear to be surprised to see him still alive.

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The ordeal of Françoise who, deceived by her husband, sees her dying child. After a few events in the backdrop of a festival, the husband returns, she pushes him away, driving him to suicide. Another man she thinks she loves is already married.

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Charles Vigne, a wealthy banker, frees Abdul, a good genius imprisoned in a vase. To thank him, Abdul grants his wish: to become a child again, while retaining the experience he has acquired. But the "disappearance" of the banker panics the financial markets and has disastrous consequences for the bank. Eventually, Charles Vigne will ask Abdul to give him back his real age.

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François, a young student at a provincial college, likes Colette, the daughter of the headmaster. Turlot his colleague, who commits suicide, left a diary where he writes of his relationship with Colette.

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In a small town in Spanish Morocco, old Ricardo, who runs a café, lives with his daughter, Conchita. She believes that Ricardo is her father. In reality, he took her in at the age of eighteen months in a douar abandoned during the conquest. One day a Berber chief, Tamar, sees Conchita, tells her that she is from his tribe and wants to take her away. She rejects it, then accepts later to find that Muslim civilization is incompatible with the Christian training she received. She escapes and succeeds in obtaining forgiveness from Tamar. A French officer from the Intelligence Service offers to collect it.

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On the borders of the desert, Péhu, a rather blunt creature on the verge of death, confesses to Charles Sigouane that some time before he stole and killed for the sake of a woman named Marie. Péhu recovers against all odds and returns to France with a view to finding Marie and to retrieve a loot he has hidden somewhere.

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For fun and to dazzle his wife, the novelist Morgan steals a ring and gets rid of it in the costume jewelry section of a supermarket. Sophie buys the diamond, which forces the novelist to embark on crazy adventures to recover the jewel.

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Together with his uncompromising friend Marie Girard, André de Lurvire clamors for moral reasons for the closing of the Bal Tabarin, a famous Paris cabaret. So, imagine André's reaction when he... inherits the joint! But, following the seductive schemes of Cora, Tabarin's sultry star, Lurvire gradually lowers his guard, discovers the good life and abandons his wife.

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Summoned by his mother to plead, a very young lawyer has a trio of pathetic criminals acquitted. The daughter of one of them reveals to the lawyer that the three accomplices hoped to find food and board in prison. For the beautiful eyes of the young girl, Master of La Bastide attaches the three rogues to his service. Disasters, confusion, clumsiness follow one another until the planned wedding.

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Georges, hunted by the Germans, had taken refuge with his brother, Commissioner PJ Paris. Once released, he teams up for the sake of a girl with the lackluster Zattore. A bank is robbed, but the police is fast and Georges will either lose his life.

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Danielle Darrieux stars as Arabella Delvaire in this baroque adaptation of Pierre Benoit's novel Bethshabee. Arabella is a woman of the world who arrives at a remote Foreign Legion outpost for a rendezvous with her current lover, Captain Duveuil. It so happens that one of Arabella's previous amours, Captain Somerville (Paul Meurisse), is also serving at the same post. So much for joining the Foreign Legion to forget. A climactic knife duel "solves" the film's various plot complications. Despite its Foreign Legion background, Bethsabee has next to no action, which must have made things difficult when the film was distributed to the U.S.

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