Charles Spaak

Paris, 1940. German occupation forces create a new film production company, Continental, and put Alfred Greven – producer, cinephile, and opportunistic businessman – in charge. During the occupation, under Joseph Goebbels’s orders, Greven hires the best artists and technicians of French cinema to produce successful, highly entertaining films, which are also strategically devoid of propaganda. Simultaneously, he takes advantage of the confiscation of Jewish property to purchase film theaters, studios and laboratories, in order to control the whole production line. His goal: to create a European Hollywood. Among the thirty feature films thus produced under the auspices of Continental, several are, to this day, considered classics of French cinema.

Documentary about filmmaker Jean Grémillon.

Dante Trilli, who has been teaching in his village school for about twenty years, wins a competition for Milan. Waiting for him is his childhood friend, where he is the janitor in the school where Trilli will teach.

Captain Justin Mollenard works for a company that sells armaments to the Far East. After an eventful stay in Shanghai, where he and his cargo are the victim of a malicious attack, he returns to his hometown of Dunkirk. Mollenard receives a frosty welcome from his wife Mathilde, who resents the way in which he has neglected his family for so many years. Mollenard’s only wish is to get back to sea as soon as he can, but a sudden heart-attack leaves him paralysed and entirely in his wife’s power...

A group of French soldiers, including the patrician Captain de Boeldieu and the working-class Lieutenant Maréchal, grapple with their own class differences after being captured and held in a World War I German prison camp. When the men are transferred to a high-security fortress, they must concoct a plan to escape beneath the watchful eye of aristocratic German officer von Rauffenstein, who has formed an unexpected bond with de Boeldieu.

The seven stages in the life of the modern Frenchwomen are disclosed by seven directors in a witty way: 1 - Childhood, 2 - Adolescence, 3 - Virginity, 4 - Marriage, 5 - Adultery, 6 - Divorce, 7 - The Single Woman.

The young Suzy is a nightclub hostess in a cabaret in which Frehel is the star. Because one night she gets propositions from a rich widower who would like to have her as his girlfriend, Suzy wishes to leave this place, where she has no future, for a better one. Abandoned by her protector, a young hoodlum named Robert, she gets the occasion to get away from it. She decides to go on vacation on the Riviera and stay at the Chateau des Cedres, the former residence of a noble family that has been transformed into a bourgeois guest house by the baroness Saint-Leu. Shy and elegant, in her modest suit, Suzy stays there under the name of Suzanne Michelet and soon makes new friends among the young people of very wealthy families.

The story of the Swiss soldier, Henri Dunant, who was responsible for the founding of the Red Cross, and who was offered the first Nobel Peace Prize.

No synopsis available yet.

The title of this French "reality" drama, which translates to Before the Deluge, is a play on Louis XVI's famous prognostication, "Apres moi, le deluge." Set in 1950, the film concentrates on five Parisian adolescents. Certain that the next war will herald the apocalypse, the youngster make plans to run off to a desert island and set up a new society. This, however, will require money, which is why the boys decide to pull off a "necessary" robbery. Idealism collapses in the face of cold reality, as the five youths suffer from the consequences of their actions. Avant le Deluge was one of a group of films cowritten by director Andre Cayatte and Charles Spaak which endeavored to explore the touchy social issues of the day: others in the Cayatte-Spaak canon include the euthanasia-themed Justice est Faite and the capital-punishment tract Nous sommes tous des assassins.

Tsar Alexandre II meets a young student, Katia. He understands that he loves her and try to send her away but they end up seeing each other again and becomes his mistress. With the help of Katia, Alexandre prepares a liberal constitution, but these reforms make him hostile to the more privileged subjects without satirising the revolutionaries against the regime.

Alena Johnston is Antione, the War Goddess of the Amazons, who must mate with the Greek king Theseus to propogate her race. Traditionally this is done only out of duty, but this time she falls in love with her "boy toy"... a definite no-no for an Amazon queen. Helmed by James Bond director Terence Young and based on a story co-authored by Robert Graves, this sexy and spectacular entry in the sword-and-sandal genre features an incredible bevy of Euro-cult starlets including Rosanna Yanni, Helga Line and Luciana Paluzzi, plus a lyrical score by Academy Award-winner Riz Ortolani.

In France in 1946, the difficult return to civilian life of five deportees and prisoners of war after having lived through the hell of the Second World War.

In the 18th century, Louis de Bourguignon is working with the Malichot's gang, but their ways are too 'unethical' for him. He creates his own band, acting under the name of Cartouche, making audacious robberies of the rich people, and even distributing the takings with the poor. Thus, cartouche attracts the people's sympathies, Venus's love, and hate from the Police and Malichot... Cartouche can escape all the traps they set at him - except the entrapments of love. Eventually, he will be saved by a woman, at her own cost.

Carmen is a French-Italian musical drama film directed by Christian-Jaque and starring Viviane Romance, Jean Marais, and Lucien Coëdel. It is a version of the famous opera. It was filmed in two versions, French and Italian, with the same screen cast but some different crew, and with Italian voices dubbed in on the Italian version, which have been munged together at IMDb. A third version, with English dubbed under the direction of British actor Noel Howlett, was made subsequently using one of the two (French or Italian) originals for the visual source.

A compilation of segments covers the seven deadly sins of greed, wrath, envy, pride, lust, sloth, and gluttony.

Inhabitants of a flophouse struggle to survive under the harsh treatment imposed by the landlord, Kostyleva. One resident, young thief Wasska Pepel, ends his affair with the landlord's wife, Vassilissa, and takes up with her sister, Natacha. Pepel also befriends the baron, a former nobleman fallen on hard times, but Pepel's attempts at happiness are complicated when he's accused of murder by a spiteful Vassilissa.

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.

Aged penniless actors are living in a old people's home. They always talk about their past glory or failures. One day Raphael Saint-Clair comes; he has been a famous actor and had a lot of love affairs. Passions come back, and jealousies... A bitter film about aging, failure and the entertainment.

Originally titled Nous Sommes Tout des Assassins, We Are All Murderers was directed by Andre Cayette, a former lawyer who detested France's execution system. Charles Spaak's screenplay makes no attempt to launder the four principal characters (Marcel Mouloudji, Raymond Pellegrin, Antoinine Balpetre, Julien Verdeir): never mind the motivations, these are all hardened murderers. Still, the film condemns the sadistic ritual through which these four men are brought to the guillotine. In France, the policy is to never tell the condemned man when the execution will occur--and then to show up without warning and drag the victim kicking and screaming to his doom, without any opportunity to make peace with himself or his Maker. By the end of this harrowing film, the audience feels as dehumanized as the four "protagonists." We Are All Murderers was roundly roasted by the French law enforcement establishment, but it won a special jury prize at the 1952 Cannes Film Festival.

Pierre Gilieth has committed a murder in Paris. He flees to Barcelona, where he runs out of money. So he joins the Spanish Foreign Legion. He meets there two fellow countrymen, Mulot and Lucas. He tries to forget his fault... but Lucas's friendship soon appears to be less unselfish...

A mysterious woman takes her daughter on vacation after they've been separated for several months. There, she meets some of the richest and most eccentric people, who are hiding just as much as she is.

A certain number of French fighter pilots who will not accept the Second Armistice at Compiègne nor Vichy's orders decide to join the USSR. Once they have reached Moscow they resume training and form a squadron they call "Normandie". Reinforced in 1944, the squadron wins many victories. Following the acts of valor displayed by its pilots during the Battle of the Nieman River, it becomes the "Normandie-Niemen" squadron for the rest of times...

After finding and adopting a child, a man gets a job at an all-girls school which doesn't allow families. Once the girls find the baby, they become his forty little mothers. At the same time, the child's true mother searches for him.

A man who lost everything in the war now smuggles contraband into and out of Spain, but the law's closing in.

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.