Philippe Clay

Acting

Philippe Clay

Born — Died

1927-03-07 — 2007-12-13

Place of birth

Paris, France

Known for

Acting

Credits

67 titles

Philippe Clay, born Philippe Mathevet, (March 7, 1927 – December 13, 2007) was a French mime artist, singer and actor. He was known for his tall and slim silhouette (he was 1,90 m tall) and for his interpretations of songs by Charles Aznavour, Claude Nougaro, Jean-Roger Caussimon, Boris Vian, Serge Gainsbourg, Jean Yanne, Léo Ferré, Jacques Datin, Jean-Claude Massoulier or Bernard Dimey. He interpreted “La Complainte des Apaches” for the TV series Les Brigades du Tigre, written by Henri Djian and composed by Claude Bolling. As an actor, he appeared in many movies (Bell, Book and Candle) and television films. One of his famous roles is in the Jean Renoir film, French Cancan, where he played…

Known for

Film credits

2020s · 2 titles

1990s · 8 titles

The Freelancers poster
4.2

In this off-beat French comedy-drama, a quirky band of classical musicians prepare to play at a nobleman's New Year's Eve gala.

The Freelancers

1999

Tuvalu poster
6.2

Set in a dilapidated indoor swimming pool (the Central Baths in Sofia), the film details the efforts of Anton, a clueless dreamer who yearns to sail the world, and Martha, the button obsessed cashier, to maintain the illusion for Anton's blind father that business is thriving. Working to sabotage their efforts is Gregor - Anton's brother - an amoral developer who is determined to raze the entire town and construct a sprawling condominium complex. Gregor engineers an accident that seems certain to doom the business and in the process steals away Eva, the beautiful woman of Anton's dreams. Will Gregor's dastardly plan succeed?

Tuvalu

1999

Lautrec poster
5.3

The life of Henri de Toulouse Lautrec, famous french painter, who lived, enjoyed, loved in the late 1800s Paris' Montmartre cultural life. He suffered from suffered from congenital health conditions traditionally attributed to inbreeding. His lifestyle and work are a testimony of the late-19th-century parisian bohemian lifestyle, as he was commissioned to produce a series of posters for the Moulin Rouge cabaret opening. As an alcoholic, he was addicted to absinthe. The movie related his love affair with the french painter Suzanne Valadon.

Lautrec

1998

Marceeel!!! poster
9.0

After the death of his controlling wife, a retiree decides to take the trip of his dreams to Tahiti, in French Polynesia. All he needs is the money. Poker and the strange complicity of a talking cat will be his best assets to raise funds.

Marceeel!!!

1998

Krim poster
7.0

A prize-fighter spends 16 years in prison for killing his wife during a blind rage. Upon his release, he wanders the grim streets of an empty French housing project in search of his now teen-age daughter. His quest forms the basis of this gripping French drama. Krim is the fighter and Yasmine his estranged daughter. Krim finds his old apartment block, but it is abandoned and slated for destruction. He is terribly disappointed, for all Krim wants right now is to be happy and to have his daughter back. He sends messages back to his friend and mentor in prison telling him how wonderful it is to be out of jail. His friend, Eugene, a lifer, isn't fooled for a second and is very angry at Krim for lying to him. Meanwhile, Krim stumbles across Nora, a teen-age drug addict, who could be his long-lost daughter. Eventually, he locks her in an abandoned flat and helps her get off the junk cold-turkey. It is a terrible scene, but he succeeds and the two begin a new kind of relationship.

Krim

1995

Alexina's House poster
8.0

In the 60s, five young teenagers find themselves on the bangs of the school system because of their family history. They are placed in a remedial class with Monsieur Raffin, a teacher who has himself fallen from the hierarchy of the French education system.

Alexina's House

1999

Le gourou occidental poster
7.0

André Doirmot, colloquially called "the father André," is the quack of Montgarçin village and its surroundings. Well known and appreciated by all, he continued the family tradition. André will be required to treat and cure the leader of a Japanese trust and his nephew. The Japanese then decided to market a new product: the elixir of Father Andrew. The figure of the brave French peasant invaded the screens, posters are put up, the commercials are made in Japanese, English, American, Arabic and even Russian! But father André lost his beautiful serenity.

Le gourou occidental

1993

No artwork available
5.5

The son of a farmer is bathed in his blood in front of an isolated mountain hut. There is no record of the attacker. Two investigators disappear without a trace. Years later, policeman Brenner sets out to find his colleagues.

Die Wildnis

1993

1980s · 5 titles

1970s · 7 titles

The Insolent poster
3.8

Having escaped from prison Ristack contacts his partner, to organize an attack on a van full of gold. The heist goes well but each man is trying to keep all the loot for himself...

The Insolent

1973

Not Dumb, the Bird poster
5.8

An old lady is far from suspecting everything that is going on behind her back, in particular what her servants are up to.

Not Dumb, the Bird

1972

Shanks poster
5.2

Malcolm Shanks is a sad and lonely man, deaf, mute and living with his cruel sister and her husband, who delight in making him miserable. His only pleasure, it seems, is in making and controlling puppets. Thanks to his skill, he is offered a job as a lab assistant to Dr. Walker, who is working on ways to re-animate dead bodies by inserting electrodes at key nerve points and manipulating the bodies as if they were on strings. When the professor suddenly dies one night, Shanks gets the idea to apply their experimental results to a human body, and then to start exacting some revenge.

Shanks

1974

The Three Musketeers poster
8.0

D'Artagnan and his musketeer comrades must thwart the plans of Cardinal Richelieu to usurp King Louis XIII's power.

The Three Musketeers

1974

Let's Arm Ourselves and Go! poster
6.3

Franco and Ciccio work as waiters in an inn in France. The day Ciccio officially takes French citizenship, the First World War breaks out between Germany and France and all citizens are forced to enlist.

Let's Arm Ourselves and Go!

1971

Les joyeux lurons poster
4.0

Three priests in cassocks visit a modest and naive country priest in a village in the South of France. They claim to be sent by the bishop for the purpose of recovering a precious reliquary currently in the hands of a vigorously anti-clerical squire. The non apostolic behavior of the three priests causes the disturbance in the village without altering the confidence of the priest. But the situation is complicated at the Sunday Mass: one is drunk on the sacristy, the other improvises a sermon not very Catholic and the third is a mess in the choir of singing. With the naive complicity of the priest, their scam is about to end ...

Les joyeux lurons

1972

Pour un sourire poster
6.8

A deserter who has lost all hope meets with a little girl in a ruined city.

Pour un sourire

1970

1960s · 7 titles

Lay Off Blondes poster
8.0

Inspector Al Whecler, cool and relaxed, is given the task by the sheriff of a town in California of investigating the murders of two girls tattooed on their right arms. His investigations bring him to a funeral chamber run by the suspicious Rodinoft...

Lay Off Blondes

1960

In The Water... Which Makes Bubbles! poster
6.3

Paul fishes out of the water the body of his greatest enemy. To avoid accusations that he is a killer, taking steps that will clear his good name.

In The Water... Which Makes Bubbles!

1961

Ivory Coast Adventure poster
6.0

An Embassy attache and a butterfly hunter become involved in a treasure hunt between two rival gangs.

Ivory Coast Adventure

1965

Take Me As I Am poster
7.3

The director of the Rome office of an American news agency is seduced by his boss' daughter, who subsequently ends up dead at the foot of a cliff. Film adaptation of James Hadley Chase’s 1956 noir thriller novel You Find Him, I'll Fix Him.

Take Me As I Am

1960

Sale temps pour les mouches poster
6.1

Renowned atomic scientists are kidnapped on French soil. Inspector San-Antonio and his loyal deputy Bérurier infiltrate a gang suspected of involvement in the case, in order to trace the trail.

Sale temps pour les mouches

1966

Musketeers of the Sea poster
6.3

Three pirates are saved from a shipwreck and seize a galleon bound for Maracaibo, where they will save the governor from a conspiracy. Italian adventure movie directed by Steno.

Musketeers of the Sea

1962

The Hotheads poster
7.0

Truck drivers hauling supplies are caught in the battle between the French and Arabs in this routine adventure drama. Jonathon is held prisoner by revolting Arabs and falls for the pretty blonde widow Lucia. The two are part of a group that is held captive and faces death when the fighting begins.

The Hotheads

1967

1950s · 14 titles

Bell, Book and Candle poster
6.6

Gillian Holroyd, a modern-day witch, becomes smitten with her handsome upstairs neighbor, Shep Henderson. Using her magical powers, she casts a love spell on him, only to face unexpected complications when genuine feelings emerge, threatening her supernatural abilities.

Bell, Book and Candle

1958

The Hunchback of Notre Dame poster
6.7

In 1482 Paris, Frollo, Chief Justice of benevolent King Louis XI, becomes infatuated by the beauty of Esmeralda, a young Romani girl. The hunchback Quasimodo, Frollo's protégé and bell-ringer of Notre Dame, lives in peace among the bells in the heights of the immense cathedral until he's involved by the twisted magistrate in his malicious plans to free himself from Esmeralda's alleged spell, which he believes to be the Devil's work.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

1956

French Cancan poster
7.2

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.

French Cancan

1955

Nathalie poster
6.6

Haute Couture model in Paris becomes involved in the activities of two rival jewel thief gangs.

Nathalie

1957

The Road to Shame poster
6.1

Pierre Rossi and Béatrice live in the same block of flats in Marseille and love each other. One night, Béatrice leaves her apartment. Pierre knows that his fiancée goes to a rendezvous, but she would not tell him more than just that. Worried, Pierre follows her but he is attacked and stolen his identity papers by two men, Tom and Nasol, on the payroll of Quaglio, one of the city's bosses. Later on, Quaglio kills Nasol and deposits the body in a garage, leaving Pierre's papers nearby. As for Pierre, he manages to follow Tom to a villa where several young women have been invited. Pierre, horrified, realizes that this place is the headquarters for the white slave trade. - Written by Guy Bellinger

The Road to Shame

1959

The Night of the Hunted poster
5.3

A young and hapless Antwerp thief, working for a gang led by leather-clad Philippe Clay, quarrels with his boss and kills him during a fight. Enlisting his sister's help, he tries to get rid of the body in the harbour, - attracting the attention of a night watchman who seeks to profit from the situation

The Night of the Hunted

1959

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

It Happened on the 36 Candles poster
5.5

Rejecting the union of her daughter Brigitte with a modest worker, Madame Magnin invents an adultery for the lover, then introduces Brigitte to a good-looking man working on the famous RTF entertainment show 36 Chandelles. The show ultimately seals the reunion of the two estranged young lovers. The story features a parade of music-hall stars from the era: Charles Trenet, Charles Aznavour, Georges Guétary, Juliette Gréco, Roger Pierre and Jean-Marc Thibault, Fernand Raynaud, Georges Ulmer and many more.

It Happened on the 36 Candles

1957

The Bureaucrats poster
5.9

The gifts and bequests department is particularly eccentric, including Lahrier, a fervent absentee and songwriter in his spare time.

The Bureaucrats

1959

Rome Express poster
5.0

A valuable painting has been stolen from an art gallery in Paris.. On a train travelling between Paris and Rome, Zutra, a mysterious and sinister character, tries to find the stolen painting.

Rome Express

1950

Le Crime du Bouif poster
8.0

A poacher nicknamed "Le Bouif" is accused of having murdered his son-in-law, trainer of a horse stable in Maisons-Laffitte.

Le Crime du Bouif

1952

Drôles de phénomènes poster
6.5

Since the day their mother Aline remarried, Patrice and Eric, a joyful pair of twins, have been very happy. Indeed, François Chantour, their stepfather, is very kind and behaves like a big brother to them. Even if they are not very rich, the four of them live a cheerful life in their charming house. The trouble is that, in Lyon, the family on the boys'father's side are worried, especially the twins' grandmother, who fears Patrice and Eric are given a bad education. She therefore brings them to her big house in the hope of their improving their manners. A very unfortunate decision indeed.

Drôles de phénomènes

1959

Life is beautiful poster
6.3

Paris, 1956. Everything is going smoothly for Roger, married to Denise, and Paul, married to Monique, until the day they win a house in a radio contest. The difficulties of living together and the intrusion of their parents-in-law lead to a falling out.

Life is beautiful

1956

En bordée poster
8.5

The two merrymakers Cartahu and Bailladrisse sail together on a cargo ship. When customs officers come aboard to conduct a search, Cartahu is unaware of a drug dealer's accomplice, who hides the box of narcotics in Cartahu's bag, which has already been visited. Unsuspecting, the two comrades go ashore, taking the precious box with them. At the hotel, by mistake, their luggage is given to another person. To recover the merchandise, the traffickers pursue the two friends, who nevertheless manage to have the whole gang arrested; and, after being tempted by pretty women to live with them, prefer to set sail for new adventures.

En bordée

1958

Series credits

Champs-Elysées poster
6.8

No synopsis available yet.

Champs-Elysées

1982

Vivement dimanche poster
3.6

No synopsis available yet.

Vivement dimanche

1998

Les Rendez-vous du dimanche poster
6.0

A talk show presented by Michel Drucker

Les Rendez-vous du dimanche

1975

Midi trente poster
6.0

No synopsis available yet.

Midi trente

1972

Discorama poster
8.0

No synopsis available yet.

Discorama

1959

No artwork available
6.0

No synopsis available yet.

Samedi soir

1971

30 millions d'amis poster
6.2

No synopsis available yet.

30 millions d'amis

1976

30 millions d'amis poster
6.2

No synopsis available yet.

30 millions d'amis

1976

À bout portant poster
8.0

No synopsis available yet.

À bout portant

1968

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Système 2

1975

Cadet Rousselle poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Cadet Rousselle

1971

Marianne, une étoile pour Napoléon poster
10.0

No synopsis available yet.

Marianne, une étoile pour Napoléon

1983

The Count of Monte Cristo poster
7.3

A TV mini-series adaptation of the classic Alexandre Dumas novel. Edmond Dantes is unjustly sent to prison for 18 years. He escapes to reclaim his fiancée Mercedes and revenge against his nemesis, Mondego.

The Count of Monte Cristo

1998

Le Gerfaut poster
8.5

No synopsis available yet.

Le Gerfaut

1987

Catherine poster
4.5

Catherine - a French TV series produced for Antenne 2 channel in 1986. It was based on the series of "Catherine" novels written by Juliette Benzoni. The series was directed by Marion Sarraut, who had already successfully brought on TV another of Madame Benzoni's work - Marianne. The director had the author's assistance going so far as working together, like mother and daughter, to work on the best-seller Catherine. Two years of preparation, fifteen months of shooting, two hundred actors - over fifteen hundred costumes. The episodes were not to be seen in prime time - but from 13:30 - 14:00 each afternoon. The production was nevertheless a huge success. The readers of the books were more than satisfied with what Marion Sarraut had done to Catherine. To their great joy, the producers had adapted the seven books more or less truthfully. Some minor changes had to be made, probably also because of the small bugdet they had at their disposal. Claudine Ancelot was a perfect Catherine. At her side, Pierre-Marie Escourrou as her great love Arnaud de Montsalvy. Pascale Petit was Sara, Benoît Brione was the evil Gilles de Rais, and Geneviève Casile Queen Yolande. For over two decades, the story of "Catherine and Arnaud" had vanished. In December 2007 the French company France Loisirs started releasing the long awaited Catherine Il suffit d'un amour TV-Serie on DVD. At the moment the whole TV series has been released on 5 double DVDs.

Catherine

1986

La Comtesse de Charny poster
6.5

No synopsis available yet.

La Comtesse de Charny

1989

La Brigade des maléfices poster
6.7

A fictional division of the National Police is tasked with the investigation of supernatural cases

La Brigade des maléfices

1971

Les Allumettes suédoises poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Les Allumettes suédoises

1996

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Frère Martin

1981

La Grande Béké poster
10.0

No synopsis available yet.

La Grande Béké

1998