Fernand Gravey

Acting

Fernand Gravey

Born — Died

1905-12-25 — 1970-11-02

Place of birth

Ixelles, Brabant, Belgium

Known for

Acting

Credits

65 titles

Fernand Gravey (25 December 1905 in Ixelles (Belgium) – 2 November 1970 in Paris, France), also known as Fernand Gravet in the United States, was the son of actors Georges Mertens and Fernande Depernay, who appeared in silent films produced by pioneer Belge Cinéma Film (a subsidiary of Pathé). Gravey started performing at age five under his father's direction. Before World War I, he received an education in Britain and could speak both French and English fluently, something which became useful in his movie roles. During the war, Gravey served in the British Merchant Marine Corp. In 1936, he married the French actress Jane Renouardt, who was 15 years his senior. They remained together unti…

Known for

Film credits

1970s · 5 titles

1960s · 5 titles

Guns for San Sebastian poster
7.0

Leon Alastray is an outlaw who has been given sanctuary by Father John, whom he then escorts to the village of San Sebastian. The village is deserted, with its cowardly residents hiding in the hills from Indians, who regularly attack the village and steal all their supplies. When Father John is murdered, the villagers mistakenly think the outlaw is the priest. Alastray at first tells them he is not a priest, but they don't believe it, and an apparent miracle seems to prove they are correct. Eventually, he assists them in regaining their confidence and defending themselves.

Guns for San Sebastian

1967

How to Steal a Million poster
7.5

A woman must steal a statue from a Paris museum to help conceal her father's art forgeries.

How to Steal a Million

1966

The Madwoman of Chaillot poster
7.3

An eccentric Parisian woman's optimistic perception of life begins to sound more rational than the traditional beliefs of others. The story is set in a 20th-century society endangered by power and greed and imagines the rebellion of the "little people" against corrupt and soulless authority.

The Madwoman of Chaillot

1969

The Woman from Beirut poster
5.4

Isabel is a beautiful aspiring singer with great aspirations but persistent bad luck convicted of a crime she did not commit. Serving time in prison she is released under parole and lands a singing gig at a dive in Barcelona where she meets Sandro "The Greek" and his partner lover Gloria. The couple is posing as entertainment promoters but they are really running a prostitution ring based in Beirut. They offer Isabel a two-year contract to perform in "night clubs" in the Near and Mideast even after they learn that she cannot travel abroad due to her legal status. Upon arrival in Beirut, Isabel and the other girls are sped away to a luxurious villa where they discover the real intentions of the pseudo-promoters. They are expected to sing and dance but also to engage in sexual activities with the rich clients that patronize the place. Isabel pretends to go along with the situation but she has a plan to get away

The Woman from Beirut

1965

The Crumblers Are Doing Well poster
4.5

In his desirable mansion, a widower wants to marry again with a twenty-year old brunette. His children disagree and they tell him so .

The Crumblers Are Doing Well

1961

1950s · 16 titles

Royal Affairs in Versailles poster
6.7

Witty narration follows the history of Versailles Palace; founded by Louis XIII, enlarged by autocratic Louis XIV, whose personal affairs and amours, and those of his two successors, are pursued in more detail to the start of the Revolution, after which the story is brought rapidly up to date.

Royal Affairs in Versailles

1953

The Age of Indiscretion poster
8.5

In a small provincial Italian town, a fifteen-year-old boy meets and falls in love with a girl.

The Age of Indiscretion

1953

La Ronde poster
7.3

An all-knowing interlocutor guides us through a series of affairs in Vienna, 1900. A soldier meets an eager young lady of the evening. Later he has an affair with a young lady, who becomes a maid and does similarly with the young man of the house. The young man seduces a married woman. On and on, spinning on the gay carousel of life.

La Ronde

1950

Toto in Paris poster
6.3

Duclos's son, a worldly gangster, is compromised in a case of which he is innocent. The proof of this innocence is in the hands of a "competitor", the Marquis de Chemantel de Beauvoiron, a misguided aristocrat. He asked for $ 10 million to cede the document. Duclos will then imagine Chemantel contracting $ 10 million in life insurance for his son. As he discovered in Rome a tramp, a look-alike of the marquis, he will bring this man to Paris and arrange for him to die accidentally.

Toto in Paris

1958

School for Coquettes poster
3.5

A young Parisian woman attends a school for coquettes in order to rise in society.

School for Coquettes

1958

The Happiest of Men poster
9.0

An industrialist who prefers painting to business is cheated on by his wife with a painter who prefers business to painting.

The Happiest of Men

1952

Slightly Ahead poster
6.2

A brilliant swindler, Olivier Parker, hires a small-time pipe salesman, Amédée, to swindle a naive provincial, Ferdinand Galiveau, a chicken merchant. Renamed Teddy Morton and now a jockey, Amédée must ride a mare on which Ferdinand, advised by Parker, must bet. Absolutely convinced of his mystification, Parker bets on an oddball who, of course, loses, while at the last minute Galiveau, having bet on an outsider, wins a fortune. All Parker has to do is find another sucker.

Slightly Ahead

1956

My Wife Is Formidable poster
4.5

Raymond Corbier, a sculptor, has a wonderful wife, Sylvia, whom he adores. To save a passionate admirer who simulates suicide because she does not respond to her advances, Sylvia, an irreproachable wife, is forced to lie for the first time to Raymond.

My Wife Is Formidable

1951

Gunman in the Streets poster
6.4

An American is on the run in the streets and back alleys of France.

Gunman in the Streets

1950

My Husband Is Marvelous poster
4.7

A young journalist, Sylvia, has to interview a writer, Claude Chatel, whose success is due to his misogyny.

My Husband Is Marvelous

1953

Mitsou poster
5.8

During the First World War, the Empyrée Montmartre, a Paris music-hall, is dedicated to patriotic revues whose star is the charming Mitsou. The young artist is not without talent but she is mainly well-connected. She is indeed the cherished mistress of Pierre Duroy-Lelong, a rich industrialist. One night, thanks to Petite-Chose, an ebullient singer-dancer and her co-star, she gets to know a handsome army, Lieutenant Bleu. Mitsou falls madly in love with him and Lieutenant Bleu is physically attracted to her. The trouble is that Bleu comes from a distinguished family and cannot put up with her lack of culture and artistic bad taste...

Mitsou

1956

La Garçonne poster
5.5

La Garçonne is a 1957 French film directed by Jacqueline Audry. It follows Monique, an ingenue and a clueless girl who believes in true love. When she discovers her future husband has a lover, she rebels against her bourgeois life:s he will lead a free and wild life and she will live like a man. Soon she becomes the toast of Gay Paris, sleeping with all the men around, and even with a woman.

La Garçonne

1957

Mademoiselle Josette, ma femme poster
7.0

Josette needs to marry within a year to get her aunt's money but her fiance has left.After getting permission from her godfather for a "white wedding, " she realizes she loves the godfather instead.

Mademoiselle Josette, ma femme

1950

Thirteen at the Table poster
5.0

Madeleine Villardier is terribly superstitious, and she's in a lot of trouble for the New Year's Eve party she's planning. Inexorably, the number of guests is down to thirteen. To add to her dismay, the presence under her roof of a certain Consuelo is proving cumbersome, especially as this lady has revelations to make about Antoine Villardier's stormy past. The mistress of the house's trances alternate with marital explanations. But why not consider the fateful number as a lucky charm?

Thirteen at the Table

1955

Le Traqué poster
8.0

Manhunt in Paris and as far as Belgium to catch an American gangster escaped from a police van.

Le Traqué

1950

Hardboiled Egg Time poster
5.5

A shy, penniless employee of the garage owner Grillot, the gentle Louis wins $10 million in the lottery. Flitting along the banks of the Seine, he takes in Raoul Grandvivier, an unknown, untalented painter who has just botched a spectacular suicide intended to draw attention to himself. Raoul takes him back to his studio, where he meets his charming daughter Lucie. In order to see Lucie again, with whom he is in love, Louis offers to sell the paintings. In reality, he's the one paying for them, to make it look like a wealthy art lover.

Hardboiled Egg Time

1958

1940s · 5 titles

1930s · 26 titles

Four Flights to Love poster
6.4

In pre-World Ward I in Paris, a budding artist, Pierre LeBlanc, falls in love and marries Janine, a dressmaker's assistant. Pierre has a flair for designing clothes, and he and his bride live in a blissful paradise, until the war breaks out and he becomes a soldier. Janine dies in childbirth and, no longer desiring to live, Pierre volunteers for a dangerous patrol behind German lines. While recuperating in the hospital from a wound he received on the mission, Pierre spends his time drawing sketches of dresses. He becomes rich and famous after the war. Years later, after devoting himself to his daughter, Pierre seeks a marriage with a girl no older than his daughter. A conflict develops and to ensure his daughter's happiness, Pierre sacrifices his own plans.

Four Flights to Love

1939

The King and the Chorus Girl poster
6.2

A destitute, bored monarch falls in love with a chorus girl.

The King and the Chorus Girl

1937

The Great Waltz poster
5.9

Composer Johann Strauss risks his marriage over his infatuation with a beautiful singer.

The Great Waltz

1938

Seven Men, One Woman poster
6.8

At the urging of her childhood friend Brémontier, Lucie de Kéradec, a wealthy widowed countess who wishes to remarry, invites all of her seven suitors to her mansion. Her untold intention is to test them by claiming to be ruined. The experience is a success in that each of the potential husbands reveals his inner nature but a failure when it comes to finding a new life partner. None of the guests passes the test except - the eighth man, namely Brémontier who loved Lucie in secret but, being penniless, had not dared declare his flame to her.

Seven Men, One Woman

1936

Fools for Scandal poster
6.3

An incognito Hollywood star in Paris meets a penniless nobleman who follows her to London.

Fools for Scandal

1938

Breakdowns of 1938 poster
5.8

Flubs and bloopers that occurred on the set of some of the major Warner Bros. pictures of 1938.

Breakdowns of 1938

1938

The Lie of Nina Petrovna poster
5.3

Nina Petrovna is a Russian beauty claimed by two Austrian officers.

The Lie of Nina Petrovna

1937

Hollywood Goes to Town poster
7.0

This short shows how Hollywood gets ready for the world premiere of an "important" movie. The film celebrated here is Marie Antoinette (1938), which had its premiere at the Carthay Circle Theatre. We see the street leading to the theatre transformed to suggest a garden that might be seen in a French palace. This includes the placement of trees and other foliage, as well as large statues along the route. Grandstands are set up so fans can see their favorite stars as they arrive for the premiere. Finally, the proverbial "galaxy of stars" arrives in their limousines. Fanny Brice and Pete Smith make remarks at the microphone set up on the carpet outside the theatre.

Hollywood Goes to Town

1938

Varieté poster
6.5

Annabella, Jean Gabin and Fernand Gravey star as a trio of circus trapeze artists. Both Gabin and Gravey love Annabella, but she has eyes only for Gravey. Seething with jealousy, Gabin plots revenge against his rival. He "accidentally" drops Gravey into a net during rehearsal -- but does he plan to do the same during a performance, when the trio works without a net?

Varieté

1935

Un homme en habit poster
9.0

Completely ruined, André is left with nothing more than the clothes on his back. He is hired as a controller in a small theater and there meets his wife, from whom he is in the process of divorcing. She tells him that he has just recieved an inheritance and that she still loves him.

Un homme en habit

1931

Screen Snapshots Series 17, No. 6 poster
NR

Fernand Gravey and Danielle Darrieux arrive in Hollywood; the Ritz Brothers achieve immortality, leaving their footprints in cement at Grauman's Chinese Theatre; a premiere at the Carthay Circle Theatre brings out Jack Benny, Mary Livingstone, Barbara Stanwyck, Franchot Tone, Joan Crawford, and many others.

Screen Snapshots Series 17, No. 6

1938

Mister Flow poster
7.0

While still behind bars, a crook manages several schemes including one that almost gets his penniless young lawyer into trouble.The crook's mistress, married to a rich man, then becomes attracted to the lawyer.

Mister Flow

1936

Fanfare of Love poster
7.3

Two unemployed musicians dress up as women to be hired by an all-female orchestra called "Tulips from Holland"; they fall in love with two gorgeous musicians.

Fanfare of Love

1935

The Last Turning poster
6.5

Frank, a hobo, ends up in a garage-truck stop in the middle of nowhere. Nick Marino, its older, kind and naive owner, is married to Cora, a sexy and mercenary woman half his age. Frank, although not a fan of hard work, accepts Nick's offer to work for him. Of course, it is not for Nick's sake that the young man becomes his attendant, but for the love of Cora under whose spell he has fallen at once. It does not take long before Cora, who despises her husband, asks her lover to help her get rid of him. Frank is reluctant at first but ...

The Last Turning

1939

You Will Be a Duchess poster
8.0

"Tu seras duchesse!" ("You'll Be a Duchess!") With these words, self-made industrialist Poisson orders his daughter Lucie to marry a wealthy Duke. The duke's father objects to the union, whereupon Poisson arranges another marriage for his daughter, this time to an impoverished and sickly young marquis. Poisson's strategy runs something like this: the Marquis is expected to die soon, whereupon the widowed Lucie will become a marquess, and thus a worthy bride for the Duke. But the Marquis foils these plans by staging a miraculous recovery. The explanation? The Marquis and Lucie have been in love all along, and this was the only way that they could wed with Poisson's blessing. Darned clever, these Frenchmen!.

You Will Be a Duchess

1932

Let's Get Married poster
9.0

Gisèle accidentally marries her stalker when she thinks she is signing a hotel register in a foreign country.

Let's Get Married

1931

Touche-à-tout poster
9.0

A young supervisor is expelled from his high school after misleading his students during an outing. He made his fortune and basked on the Côte d'Azur. A young maid comes to his aid before he loses everything. She reveals to him that she is in fact a successful novelist.

Touche-à-tout

1935

No artwork available
8.0

When he is not conducting his orchestra, a talented young man invents a device to thwart car thieves. Associating himself with a rich Dutch baron, he falls in love with the baron's daughter.

C'était un musicien

1934

Monsieur Sans-Gêne poster
8.0

A man creates a national scandal after he mistakenly kisses the wrong woman in a darkened cinema. The following year it was remade as an American comedy One Rainy Afternoon, released by United Artists.

Monsieur Sans-Gêne

1935

The Premature Father poster
7.0

Edouard Puma, seduced by a seamstress at the age of 18, had a son whom he raised in secret, never having dared to confess his fault to his terrible father. Having grown up, the son comes to revive his father. After a series of complicated adventures, Father Puma learns the truth and everything works out.

The Premature Father

1933

The Queen's Affair poster
10.0

Poor New York shop girl Nadina receives the unexpected news that she is next in line to be queen of an Eastern European country. On her arrival in Ruritania, a revolution is in progress, and only minutes before her coronation, Nadina is forced into exile. She flees to Paris with her nurse, and then travels on to Switzerland. There Nadina encounters the Ruritanian revolutionary leader Carl, recuperating from the trials of revolution, and the couple unexpectedly fall in love. When the revolution collapses in Ruritania, they return and marry, thus forming a constitutional monarchy supported by all the people.

The Queen's Affair

1934

No artwork available
10.0

'Manicurist Grete and nightclub waiter Carl share a bed, but not at the same time. They hate each other, even though they have never met. Their rented room is next to a cinema with its frankfurter-munching projectionist and romantic musical numbers that seem to permeate their lives. Might they meet and fall in love?' (BFI)

Early to Bed

1933

Passionately poster
10.0

A jealous American, Mr Stevenson, travels to France with his very pretty young wife Kitty. He tries all sorts of subterfuges so that the charming young woman does not attract the attention of men. But she did not escape the gaze of a certain Robert Perceval.

Passionately

1932

Symphonie D'Amour poster
7.0

A ten-year old film when it was first released in the USA as "Symphonie D'Amour" in 1946. Panard (Fernand Gravet) is a talented composer who is having little success in his musical career. He is reduced to hiring out as a sandwich-board man to advertise what proves to be his own show. His girl, Jacqueline Francell, interests a Marquis in backing the show. She and Panard are happily reunited after the successful opening of his operetta.

Symphonie D'Amour

1936

Court Waltzes poster
9.0

Composer Joseph Lanner is jealous when the first violinist in his orchestra, none other than Johann Strauss, wants to form his own orchestra also in Vienna and write his own compositions.

Court Waltzes

1933

Si j'étais le patron poster
6.8

An intelligent young worker, enterprising but boastful, repeats to all the winds that, if he were the boss, we would see what we would see. One of the main shareholders of the factory takes him at his word for twenty-four hours.

Si j'étais le patron

1934

1910s · 3 titles

Series credits