
Acting
René Hell
Born 1891-05-01 · Orbec, Calvados, Basse-Normandie, France
Acting credits
6.5During the 1960s, two American jazz musicians living in Paris meet and fall in love with two American tourist girls and must decide between music and love.
Paris Blues
1961
6.1Paul Martin is the subservient brown-nosing youngster who needs quick advancement up the hierarchy to pay for the modern lifestyle he is buying on credit. Seeing that marrying his immediate superior's daughter will not get him the results he wants, he begins plotting the demise of the head of the company. The company itself specializes in holiday travel and unscrupulously brutalizes its customers for maximum profit, spending more thought on publicity gimmicks than customer service...
Carom Shots
1963
7.1Two scriptwriters argue about the fate of Henrietta, a charming and gamine shopgirl. One favors a comical path for their heroine, who is overcome with sentimental love for a young photographer on Bastille Day. The other has a more thrilling and dastardly fate in mind for her. Among the film's irresistible conceits is Hildegarde Neff as an oversexed circus bareback rider.
Holiday for Henrietta
1952
6.5A gangster, arrested by the police, manages to escape during his transfer to Paris. He takes refuge in the suburbs where his accomplices and his mistress await him.
Piège à hommes
1949
5.7Antoine Peyralout is baker Mouillefarine's tricycle delivery man. Comical and stuttering, Antoine shows more interest in the local soccer team than in professional integrity. A wedding cake pays the price for it and the young man is dismissed. Not dispirited in the least, Antoine decides to go to Nice, where his favorite team will play the final of the Cup. On his merry (and eventful) way, he has the opportunity to save a pretty camper, Popeline, with whom he falls in love. Once in Nice, he discovers that Dabek, the brilliant goal-keeper is not up to his task following bad news...
The Tricyclist
1957
7.0"Le Dabe" retired many years ago and now he lives in the Tropics where he owns stables and horses. He is a very rich man. He was the king of all money counterfeiters. He is contacted from Paris to organize a new job. He says no. But when he finds out the the currency that should be counterfeited is the Dutch florin, he accepts immediately. He retired after having counterfeited 100 florin notes just before the Queen Wilhelmina retired them from circulation. He flies to Paris. But the gang is not to be trusted, at least not all of them.
The Counterfeiters of Paris
1961
7.2Gentleman gangster Max and his partner, Riton, pull off their last, most successful heist and find themselves comfortable enough to retire in the style they enjoy. However, Max confides the details of the theft to his younger mistress, Josey -- who has secretly taken up with ambitious young rival gangster Angelo. Angelo then has Riton kidnapped and demands the stash of gold as ransom, which threatens Max's dreams of the perfect retirement.
Touchez Pas au Grisbi
1954
6.2Vallois, a vice inspector for the Paris police, takes special interest in the plight of drug-addicted Lucky (Najda Tiller), whom he considers to be more victim than criminal. Taking it upon himself to wean Lucky away from narcotics, Vallois also wins her love -- and, incidentally, smashes the dope ring responsible for her addiction.
The Night Affair
1958
5.5France, July 1782. During her birthday, the beautiful young Marchioness Caroline meets the attractive soldier Gaston. It's love at first sight but Gaston does not wish to make a commitment because a military career waits for him. Caroline marries then a politician but the French Revolution bursts and Caroline has to run away to escape the guillotine. By running away she meets Gaston again who decides to help her.
Dear Caroline
1951
5.7Violeta, an Andalusian gypsy, foretells a lady she will become empress. The lady is Eugenia de Montijo, and when she marries emperor Luis Napoleón of France she takes the young girl with her. The empress'cousin readily makes her his focus of attention, then she discovers a criminal attempt against the empress.
Imperial Violets
1952
7.1Portrait of a two-faced man. By day he is rich, brilliant and respectable financial officer Lussac; at night, he becomes "Mirror", a ruthless gang leader in Marseilles.
Mirror
1947
7.3Two unlikely companions must smuggle four suitcases filled with contraband pork across Nazi-occupied Paris.
La Traversée de Paris
1956
5.7RY A revolution breaks out in a South American country while its cruel dictator is on a trip to France. The rebels have made careful plans to blow up the dictator's private plane as he returns, but at the last second he changes plans and travels on a commercial flight. The rebels then must make a difficult decision: they must either blow up a flight filled with innocent passengers, or else allow the dictator to return home and take brutal reprisals against the leaders of the uprising.
A Bomb for a Dictator
1957
7.0The exploits of Chief Police Inspector Chabrier, first before the invasion of France in May 1940 as he fights against spies preparing the coming the Germans, particularly Emmy de Welder, the alleged manager of the Rouen hospital. Later, Chabrier and his men go underground and resist the occupiers whatever the price to pay. When the Liberation comes Chabrier resumes his activities at the French National Police.
Special Mission
1946
6.4A woman in Paris hires a taxi driver to locate her ex-lover, father to her newborn child, who left her without leaving an address.
Without Leaving an Address
1951
5.3Martin is a nurse in a private clinic in Paris. The victim of a serious concussion, an unidentified casualty, arrives in the emergency room one night. He is operated on immediately. When he wakes up, half-unconscious, he tells Martin a confused story about stealing jewels from a maharajah visiting Marseille... before falling into total amnesia. Real and fake policemen interrogate Martin, gangsters kidnap him to get him to reveal precious information, but... the nurse keeps his mouth shut!
Mum's the Word
1960
5.3Mammy has a grandson she adores even though he is a good for nothing. One day Maurice disappears and Mammy becomes blind. When Maurice finally announces his return the fond old lady is overjoyed. Unfortunately, Maurice's plane crashes and catches fire. The young man is reported missing, presumably dead. Pierre, Mammy's husband, can't bring himself to announce such a shocking news. Desperate, he finds no other solution than subterfuge : he will ask a young couple to pass themselves off as Maurice and his girlfriend.
Mammy
1951
6.8At the end of the Great War, Arsène Lupin resumed his adventurous life. Theft of three paintings committed by an adversary leads him to the treasure of the Golden Fleece.
Signed, Arsène Lupin
1959
6.5The manager of a firm has a very unusual idea : asking his employees to pose as gangsters and to hold up a bank before returning the stolen money and pocketing the reward. But things do not go according to plan and the phony thieves get stolen in their turn. They have no other choice than turning into amateur detectives to be able to pay back the stolen dough.
The Rear-Wheel Drive Gang
1950
5.0Irène is the unhappy wife of a wealthy publisher, Jacques Voisin-Larive, who cares about her no more than a beautiful piece of furniture. Her meeting with Étienne, a young cabinetmaker with whom she falls in love, turns her dismal existence upside down. Not wanting to reveal her condition to her lover, she pretends to be a modest maid, employed by the Voisin-Larive. At the end of a weekend spent with her lover, Irène discovers that she is pregnant. The fragile balance of their existence is suddenly broken. Taking the initiative, she reveals her affair to Jacques and tells him about her desire to divorce. But her husband has no intention of giving her back her freedom...
The Strange Madame X
1951
6.3Industrialist Pierre Verdier kills his mistress Jeanne Ancelin by throwing her off a train. Her husband, Ancelin, decides to take revenge on his wife's murderer, who has been acquitted by justice.
Witness in the City
1959
6.9Police Commissioner Jules Maigret returns to the small village where he spent his childhood at the request of the Countess of Saint-Fiacre, who has received a disturbing anonymous letter.
Maigret and the St. Fiacre Case
1959
5.6A light French comedy of 5 segments.
People in Luck
1963
5.9Robert Langlois is now married to Catherine, the former housemaid. And they would live happily ever after if the housing crisis did not force them to live together with Gabrielle and Fernand, Robert's parents. For, despite the good will on either side, tension soon arises. What else to expect when there is too little space in their Montmartre apartment for four people (then for six then eight, the couple having... two pairs of twins!) ; the continued presence there of Fernand (who loves peace and quiet) after he is driven to retirement ; the difficult beginnings of Robert as a lawyer in a room of the apartment, etc... Other troubles follow and the harried family is on the verge of implosion...
Papa, Mama, My Wife and Me
1955