Bourvil

Charismatic and resourceful, seducer and daredevil, Jean-Paul Belmondo has always played his roles as he lived, at a thousand miles an hour. He had only one passion: to entertain the public with his smile, his naturalness, his energy, his stunts. But contrary to appearances, his destiny was full of pitfalls. This film lifts the veil on a founding childhood that allowed him to overcome many obstacles throughout his life thanks to the tutelary figures of his father and mother. Told from the inside with the help of his autobiography, interviews and unpublished archives, this epic story traces the career of this turbulent young actor who launched the New Wave in Breathless before becoming the popular Bebel, an indestructible and provocative vigilante. From film to film, this documentary paints an intimate portrait of a man who built himself up to reach the top: his triumphs but also his trials, his doubts, his secrets, his angers, his clowning, his disappointments or his personal dramas.

At the end of the 1950s, four humor specialists simultaneously experienced recognition. Fernandel with “The Cow and the Prisoner”, Bourvil with “The Hunchback”, Jacques Tati with “My Uncle” and Louis de Funès with “Oscar” at the theater. On the big screen or on stage, each of these artists has a unique style of humor. They are the kings of French comedy. But how did they manage to become true box office champions? How did they experience their immense popularity? How do they still influence the comedy genre? And above all, are- are they funny in life? Where is the line between their character in the cinema and their real personality?

A documentary view of the galas of Paris’s Palais Garnier in the 1950s and ’60s.

September 23, 2022 marks the 52nd anniversary of the death of Bourvil (1917-1970). Radio, sketches, boulevard theater, operetta, cinema, songs whimsical or tender, Bourvil is present in all areas of popular culture. Carried by the voice of Valérie Lemercier, this portrait of the artist allows us to rediscover his most beautiful songs, from Les Crayons to La Tendresse, and the highlights of his filmography, from the cult scenes of La Traversée de Paris, Le Corniaud and La Grande Vadrouille to Le Cercle rouge. We also rediscover the richness of his career as a singer and actor, with some little known nuggets. The testimony of Bourvil's two sons, unpublished family films and numerous archives tell the story of the all too brief life of this endearing man.

Can you become a star without being a loudmouth? Absolutely, and Bourvil is proof of that. This discreet artist had many talents: he was both an actor and a singer, with equal success and enjoyment. First noticed for his songs and sketches, in which he created the character of the village idiot, he learned through experience the art of creating characters who were naive, certainly, but increasingly subtle. We propose to look back on the all too brief life of this man who was as endearing as he was discreet.

The fall of 2017 marked the 30th anniversary of Lino Ventura's death. Whether in the role of tough cops or tough guys - in the 1960s, Lino Ventura was one of the most popular French character actors. The new portrait begins with the actor's childhood. He came to Paris from Parma in Italy as a child with his single mother and faced many humiliations in a xenophobic environment. The documentary explores the man behind the rough exterior and the tough characters he embodied, most of whom were courageous but introverted loners.

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Jean Gabin took his first steps in cinema in the 1930s and quickly rose to fame thanks to his striking naturalness. Having become a star, he made his mark in the most famous French films, first by playing magnificent thugs or characters with tragic destinies, then by imprinting his characters with his aura, his legendary wit, and his charisma that commanded respect. An exceptional actor, he became one of the great names of French cinema and continued to build his legend, working with the greatest filmmakers (Grangier, Verneuil, Delannoy) and alongside prestigious actors (Bernard Blier, Lino Ventura, Louis de Funès, Alain Delon, Jean-Paul Belmondo).

Bonus footage from the film "Le Corniaud" (1964).

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When French criminal Corey gets released from prison, he resolves to never return. He is quickly pulled back into the underworld, however, after a chance encounter with escaped murderer Vogel. Along with former policeman and current alcoholic Jansen, they plot an intricate jewel heist. All the while, quirky Police Commissioner Mattei, who was the one to lose custody of Vogel, is determined to find him.

1944. Léon Duchemin owns a restaurant with his sister. His clients are Germans, Résistance et black marketeers. Léon unwillingly joins the Résistance when a British pilot is shot down and hides in his attic and, through a series of mishaps, he accidentally steals the plans for Hitler's V1 missiles.

Veterinary surgeon William Chaminade is having a peaceful holiday in the South of France when he is witness to an event that will change not only his life but the destiny of France! A young woman tries to kill herself by jumping from the upstairs window of the hotel where he is staying. Thanks to the services of a passing athlete, the woman is unharmed, and she reveals that her distress is down to her husband’s apparent lack of interest in her. Immediately, Chaminade has a brainwave. He will open a special centre for people like this unfortunate young woman, who will be able to satisfy their romantic needs, at the tax payers’ expense. All is well until this innovative ’pleasure centre’ draws the attention of an over-zealous tax inspector, Dupuis...

The retelling of June 6, 1944, from the perspectives of the Germans, US, British, Canadians, and the Free French. Marshall Erwin Rommel, touring the defenses being established as part of the Reich's Atlantic Wall, notes to his officers that when the Allied invasion comes they must be stopped on the beach. "For the Allies as well as the Germans, it will be the longest day"

During World War II, two French civilians and a downed British Bomber Crew set out from Paris to cross the demarcation line between Nazi-occupied Northern France and the South. From there they will be able to escape to England. First, they must avoid German troops – and the consequences of their own blunders.

In this Franco-Italian gangster parody, a shopkeeper on his way to an Italian holiday suffers a crash that totals his car. The culprit can only compensate his ruined trip by driving an American friend's car from Naples to Bordeaux, but as it happens to be filled with such contraband as stolen money, jewelry and drugs, the involuntary and unwitting companions in crime soon attract all but recreational attention from the "milieu".

Sequel to "Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines". This time an international car rally from England to Monte Carlo provides the comedic farce.

Businessman Victor Hardy wants to buy the entire area around the small village of Cabosse. He claims that he wants to return to nature, but he also intends to profit by selling the water from the village fountain, which is reputed to enhance longevity. However old farmer Mathieu and his sons don't want to sell...

A U.S. intelligence general recalls three Cold War cases of Soviet, French and Italian spies.

Arthur and Anatole are two little robbers. They want to rob money, money that will travel in a special train from Paris to Bruxelles. They don't know that other people have planned to do the same thing.

A French-American millionaire, his girlfriend and his war buddy try to grant his dying son's every wish.

A lovely young nurse finds herself framed for the murder of a hospital patient who died after she administered an injection.

During WW2, a posh bourgeois woman (Morgan)is compelled to live under the same room as a crude simple-minded yet big-hearted man.(Bourvil) Her husband was arrested by the Gestapo and she is a hunted woman.

Hector Valentin returns to France from Canada when he inherits a small sawmill. He has difficulties restarting the run-down operation which has inefficient workers and is hampered by the dirty tactics of its bigger...

Le capitan is a 1960 French-Italian swashbuckler film directed by André Hunebelle and starring Jean Marais, Bourvil, Elsa Martinelli and Lise Delamare. It is based on a novel by Michel Zévaco.

After thirteen years in Germany, Fernand is coming back to his wife and his restaurant. But since his disparition, his wife as made her life with a norman chef, sympathetic but a specialist of butter's cooking when Fernand cook only with oil!

Sickened to see his students always sleeping in class, a teacher with a colleague and an anarchist start a war against the television. They climbed on Paris roofs to coat the T.V. antennas with a special product cutting the signal reception.

A story about inventor who invented a cool bike and goes on racing competition but has a lot of problems on his way.

Georges Lachaunaye is a member of an impoverished aristocratic family which needs money to live but of course doesn't want to work for it. He therefore has to think of something drastic in order for the family to survive. And then it comes to him: he'll rob the collection boxes in churches.

Justin, a lyricist by trade, and his friend Pierre, a composer, lead a bohemian life in Paris. Justin thinks his mother Josefa is richer than she appears, and decides to swindle her out of three million centimes by using Pierre as an intermediary in a case involving an insolvent check. Josefa uncovers the ruse and refuses to help her son. However, Pierre has discovered the identity of his friend's father, who had been unknown to him for twenty years. With the help of Justin's mother, the two friends do everything they can to extort the son's missing three million centimes from his ashamed and repentant father.

In the sunny landscapes of Provence, Henri Arnaud is a conscientious law student who's got a lovely girlfriend, Tina. The person who used to pay for his studies dies and the poor young man's disposable funds are low. He asks an antique dealer if he can lend him some money. This shady guy agrees, but in return for homosexual relations. Henri kills him and runs away. Fortunately, a good judge, who bears the same name as him, comes to his rescue.

A man falsely recognize two teenagers and one child as his own children in order to avoid jail so his life becomes more and more chaotic.

Antoine Rossi, a recidivist prisoner of war in Germany, manages to escape with the cowardly Fendard. Fendard does everything in his power to help him even though he is wounded, but Antoine tries to get rid of him as he boards the train to freedom.

André Loriot works for Dr Clairac in a laboratory producing euphoric pills. He searches in vain for an apartment where he can settle down and start a family with the woman who loves him, Juliette. To motivate himself and cope with the setbacks he encounters, he decides to swallow an excessive dose of euphoriants.

A well-to-do bourgeois, Tartarin lives in Tarascon, a small southern town, among friends who, like him, love hunting "à la casquette", gossip, aperitifs and thought-provoking journeys. Imaginative like all his compatriots, Tartarin ended up believing he had once been to Shanghai, so fervently did he recount his illusory adventures. It was even rumored that Tartarin was about to leave for Africa to hunt wild beasts, and this was so insistent that the brave man, urged on by his friends, was forced "for the sake of honor" to embark. He arrives in Casablanca, surprised to discover a modern city and not a single lion. But a charming Moorish woman, Baïa, seduces him, and Tartarin indulges in the "delights of Capua". This euphoria is short-lived: Baïa disappears, a false prince, mostly a swindler, finds a replacement and sets off on a hunting expedition in southern Morocco, which will only earn Tartarin the loss of his savings and a blind old lion dragged along by two beggars.

Léon, a humble civil servant, has the unusual ability to walk through walls, however thick they are. One day, he falls madly in love with a charming hotel thief by the name of Suzan.

This movie is a Marcel Aymé adaptation and it deals with the not-so-glorious side of the Occupation: black market, war profiteers, cracking open bottles of Champagne while most of the Parisians are almost starving.

Brigadier Le Gouce and Private Flicot lose their horses during a campaign in Italy. To avoid looking ridiculous, the two hussars cross the country in search of their mounts. But when they are mistaken for deserters, their regiment gives chase.

Two unlikely companions must smuggle four suitcases filled with contraband pork across Nazi-occupied Paris.

In 19th century France, Jean Valjean, a man imprisoned for stealing bread, must flee a relentless policeman named Javert. The pursuit consumes both men's lives, and soon Valjean finds himself in the midst of the student revolutions in France.

Duke Philippe de Nevers is an influential and popular man who is married to a beautiful wife called Aurore. His rival Philippe de Gonzague hates him enough to organise an attempt on him. The Duke is accompagnied by Henri de Lagardère when de Gonzague's henchmen altogether attack him. Lagardère cannot save his friend because the both of them are hopelessly outnumbered. He has to escape in order to save the Duke's daughter and swears revenge. Together with his old buddy Passepoil he raises the little girl in Spain. At the same time he returns frequently to France where he detects confronts his friend's murderers and puts them to the sword one by one until only their former leader is left. Finally he discovers that Philippe de Gonzague is the man for whom he is looking.

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.

A green mare makes the fortune of her owner, the horse dealer Haudouin. Shortly after his death, war broke out in 1870. One day, his neighbor Zèphe Maloret denounces Honoré, Haudouin's son, a maverick, to the Prussians. Following this denunciation, their non-commissioned officer enters the Haudouin home and rapes the mother while Honoré is hidden under the bed. The resentment already existing between the Haudouin and Maloret families turns to hatred... A letter recalling the events is lost, which doesn't help matters.

The umpteenth adaptation of Dumas' novel finds d'Artagnan and his friends promoting the love affairs of Anne of Austria and the Duke of Buckingham, incurring the wrath of the Cardinal and exposing themselves to the cold cruelty of Milady de Winter. Also featured are the tender Mme Bonacieux, the hilarious Planchet, the Queen's ferrets and Bethune's executioner, against a backdrop of clanging swords.

Emile is a good mechanic whose clientele is very loyal. A bit naive, he is bamboozled by a seller who manages to sell him the full trappings of the perfect fisherman. No sooner did he regret that he bought, frightened by his wife's reaction to such expenditure. But he plans to try it ...

A teacher runs an ad in the newspaper to find a wife. Afraid of beautiful ladies, he weds an ugly woman. After a car accident, he meets a doctor who offers to reveal his wife's beauty.

A provincial ingenue leaves her mother’s tobacco shop with dreams of a life in the Parisian theater, only to become entangled in relationships with a lecherous aristocrat, his starry-eyed nephew, and an old ham actor.

Count Fernand du Bois d'Enghien typifies the pleasure seeker and as such he has a mistress of course, star singer Lucette Gauthier. But now Fernand feels it is time for him to tie the knot. For that, pretty Viviane Duverger is the ideal prey. The trouble is that the explosive Lucette does not hear it that way. Fortunately for Bois d'Enghien, Urugua, a rich South American general, falls in love with Lucette.

Jean Brevent still did not understand the departure of his wife, Danielle Darieux. It's been five years, but he still can't forget her. In spite of a work of writer originator in a newspaper, in which it tried to be invested completely, time did not make its work. One day, by chance, he meets her in the bus...

Philippe, an employee at the Bourdinet firm, having been caught kissing Jacqueline, his boss's daughter, is fired. Some time later, Bourdinet launches a radio quiz show to boost his business. Philippe then decides to compete in the hope of telling the thousands of listeners what he thinks of the industrialist. A blow on the head having given him a gift of second sight, the competitor becomes impeccable and wins astronomical sums to the great despair of Bourdinet. Everything will work out in the end and Philippe will be able to marry Jacqueline.

The Adventures of Cadet Rousselle that on the French Revolution left his hometown in search of fortune. He thinks he knows love with Violeta, a dancer in a band of comedians but ends up involved in a monarchist plot.

To inherit his uncle's hotel and restaurant, a naive and simple man must pass his primary school exam.

Madame Husson and her circle of holier-than-thou ladies (including an old maid Madame Cadenas)are looking for a chaste and pure girl who will win a hefty sum.

Vincent Etchebar is spotted by the impresario Cartoni who gives him the opportunity to break into Paris. But nothing will go as planned.

Robert and Françoise Monier make a hot air balloon to fly to the stratosphere. After a visit to Venus, they return home, but have only aged 15 days whereas 25 years have passed on Earth.

Martine, who has become a major star of the song in Paris, wants to return to visit her hometown. Confronted with Merlerault, a very haughty and noble character who wants to teach her how to live, she succumbs after a time of anger, to the charms of the gentleman. They get married but she forgot to tell her husband that her father is in fact the most famous poacher in the area.

Naive and good-hearted Léon Ménard arrives in Paris, determined to find work in the capital. In a café, he meets Bob, a seedy guy, who helps him to get a job. On cloud nine, the ingenuous young man, does is unaware of how Bob manipulates him. Having become the night concierge of a hotel, the thankful Léon lets Bob and his accomplices get into the pace. Jewels are stolen as a result.When he is accused, Leon refuses to incriminate his "friend". Fortunately, Charlotte, Léon's fiancé, manages to find evidence of Bob's guilt and thanks to a premium paid by the diamond dealer the two lovebirds can buy a grocer's shop and tie the knot.

A large farm in Vendée. The father is dying and the three brothers and sister swear not to marry not to break up the field. Months pass. Francis, the eldest, took things in hand. For him, the promise to their father is sacred. So he does everything for his brothers and his sister Amanda are not tempted. However, the latter lets himself courted by a young man from the neighboring village ...

Léon Ménard, the village verger, is a decent young man whose hobby is to play the accordion. One day he is fired for having accompanied Mary Pinson, a singer deemed scandalous by the right-minded parishioners. Blinded by his love for Mary, Léon follows her to Paris where he becomes her plaything. With Mary's complicity, a gang of swindlers make him the puppet proprietor of a night club. But Léon can't live in a fool's paradise forever and soon finds himself on the street, forsaken and desperate. Luckily, the manager of a circus notices him while he is busking and he hires Léon at once. Not only will success come to him but he will win the love of sweet Solange.

No synopsis available yet.