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La Chaste Suzanne (1937)
Character: Monsieur des Aubrays
Madame Pomarel becomes the winner of a prize of virtue awarded by the Academy of Moral Sciences which Monsieur des Aubrais is a prominent member. In reality she walks the cabarets, including the Moulin Rouge, where a succession of misunderstandings will occur with a string of characters.
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Le Secret de Polichinelle (1936)
Character: Mr. Jouvenel
Secret de Polichinelle roughly translates as Open Secret. The "secret" in question is an illegitimate child, the offspring of young-and-foolish Henri (Bernard Lacret). The baby is adopted by its grandparents, Monsieur and Madame Jouvenol (Raimu and Francoise Rosay). At first taking charge of the child because it is their duty, the Jouvenols come to love the little nipper as if he were their own son. At this point, the film threatens to drown in a morass of sentiment, but the actors and the director manage to stem the bathos with some first-rate comedy vignettes revolving around the care and feeding of the bouncing baby boy.
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Monsieur Brotonneau (1939)
Character: N/A
A man leaves his adulterous wife for his secretary, but then the wife apologizes and wants her husband back again.
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Minuit... place Pigalle (1934)
Character: Monsieur Prosper
After retiring as a butler in a nightclub where he made his fortune, Prosper decides to return to his job after the death of his wife. Now ruined, he only finds a job as a dishwasher.
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Dernière jeunesse (1939)
Character: Georges
Middle-aged Georges of the "old school" who offers shelter and comfort to Marcelle. Despite his own reservations, Georges falls in love with the much-younger girl, remaining faithful to her even after he realizes that she cares only for his money.
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Ultima giovinezza (1939)
Character: Cesare
Caesar, a senior French colonist returned home after many years of absence, knows a girl, Marcella, who is in full depression because she was abandoned by her lover. Caesar welcomes her into his home and surrounds her with paternal attention so that he can quickly forget the past. Slowly his feeling turns into a love that Marcella seems to reciprocate. However, when Cesare realizes that the girl feels only gratitude for him and is in love with a younger man, he loses control. Blinded by jealousy, he plans to kill Marcella's lover but, in the face of the girl's vulgarity and indifference, he realizes that he has been teased and turns his anger towards her.
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Les Jumeaux de Brighton (1936)
Character: Beaugérard père et les deux fils Achille
Slapstick inheritance comedy based on the confusion between twin brothers, both played by the great Raimu who also plays their father.
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Théodore et Cie (1933)
Character: Clodomir
Chénérol, a wealthy merchant, one day discovers that his wife is having an affair and that his nephew is playing with him. Indeed, the latter, Théodore, does not work but earns money by using a few dirty tricks.
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Le Roi (1936)
Character: M. Bourdier
King John IV of Cerdania, who knows monarchs are a vanishing race but who plays his royalty role in state council or boudoir to the hilt, is in Paris to sign a treaty, and becomes enmeshed in intrigue with an actress, Therese Mannix and involved in a bit of cuckoldry with YouYou Bourdier, the ex-seamstress wife of a French senator, who is un-awed by money, power or the King's kisses. For his part, her husband, Senator Bourdier, is glad to use his wealth, wife and collectivist ideals for social position, in spite of his democratic posing.
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Les Nouveaux Riches (1938)
Character: Legendre
The workers Legendre and Martinet have won a large sum in the national lottery. Instead of squandering it, they had the good idea to invest it in industry. Happy in business, they soon find themselves at the head of a fortune. But their characters are very different. Legendre, who is brave and honest, narrowly escapes the malevolence of a couple of harlots. Martinet, his former work companion, has become a crooked and formidable financier. Both will face each other in court, the honesty of the first finally triumphing over the greed of the second.
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La Petite Chocolatière (1932)
Character: Félicien Bédarride
A bureaucratic civil servant is annoyed by the spoiled daughter of a rich chocolate maker, but lands up marrying her.
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L'Homme qui cherche la vérité (1940)
Character: Jean Vernet
Jean Vernet, an unselfish banker, feels fine : he has a charming mistress, Jacqueline ; a godson, Fernand, that he took in when he was a child and that he has brought up and cherished ever since ; a faithful friend, Lamblin ; and an adorable dog. But things are not so rosy as they look. Adrienne, Jean's sister, hates Jacqueline and is prepared to do everything to separate the couple. Worse, it looks as though Fernand has betrayed his godfather by sleeping with Jacqueline. To know more about those around him, Jean, a modern Volpone, decides to fake deafness.
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Les étoiles ne meurent jamais (1957)
Character: Self (archive footage)
For Les étoiles ne meurent jamais, director/archivist Max De Vaucorbeil has assembled precious film clips of such Gallic greats as Louis Jouvet, Raimu, Harry Baur, Louis Salou and Marguerite Moreno. Francois Perier's narration links the various vignettes together. In its own way, Les Etoiles ne Maurent Jamais can be seen as a precursor to those now-ubiquitous "tributes" on such cable services as American Movie Classics and Turner Classic Movies.
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Le Héros de la Marne (1938)
Character: Bernard Lefrançois
Bernard Lefrancois is a prosperous farmer on the River Marne, while his neighbor is impoverished. Lefrancois objects strongly to the romance between his son and the neighbor's daughter, but it continues in secret. WWI begins and the son becomes an aviator with the French army, and the unwed girl presents Lefrancois with an unexpected grandchild. The German army occupies the area, and the girl is serving France as a spy and securing information needed by the French to drive out the Germans. While his son is engaged in air-combat against the Germans, and the unwed mother of his grandchild is serving as a spy against their country's enemy, Lefrancois also joins the battle as a soldier.
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L'Arlésienne (1942)
Character: Marc
In the Camargue a local young playboy named Frédéri falls in love with a young woman from Arles. His family thinks she is unsuitable as a wife because she had a fling with a soldier. His entourage attempt to cheer him up but he intends to commit suicide.
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Le Duel (1941)
Character: Father Bolène
A widow is loved by a doctor whose brother, an ecclesiastic unconsciously in love with the young woman, persuades her to enter a convent. Brought back on the straight and narrow by a missionary, the priest blesses his brother's marriage.
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Parade en 7 nuits (1941)
Character: Vicar Maffre
In the pound, Pipo the dog recounts his adventures to his fellow inmates.
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Charlemagne (1933)
Character: Charlemagne
After the sinking of their boat, seven passengers from a wealthy background find themselves on a desert island. The man who saves them from drowning then proposes to the sailor Charlemagne to become the king of the peninsula.
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Mam'zelle Nitouche (1931)
Character: Célestin / Floridor
Célestin, the organist of a convent, has written and composed a light operetta under the name of Floridor. One day, the Mother Superior asks him to chaperone one of the boarders, Denise de Flavigny, who is returning home to get married. Now, Denise, for all her goody goody looks, soon proves as saucy as can be. Things get even more complicated when Célestin starts courting Corinne, the star of his operetta, to the great displeasure of a commander of dragons, the young woman's lover. Worse, the latter is none other than the Mother Superior's brother... To say nothing of Lieutenant Fernand de Champlatreux, who happens to fall in love with Denise, his fiancée that he has never seen before...!
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L'Homme au chapeau rond (1946)
Character: Nicolas Pavlovitch
An adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "Le Eternel Mari", a somber story of marital infidelity, revenge and near madness, and starring Raimu in his last film appearance.
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Monsieur La Souris (1942)
Character: Antonin Ramatuel / Monsieur La Souris
On a rainy night, eccentric tramp Mr. La Souris finds a corpse. But the body soon vanishes in his car leaving only his wallet. While the police start investigating a missing person report, La Souris concocts a plan to secure his find.
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Le Blanc et le Noir (1931)
Character: Marcel Desnoyers
A one-night stand with an entertainer threatens to destroy a woman's marriage after she gives birth to a black child.
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Les Perles de la couronne (1937)
Character: L'industriel du midi
The story of the seven pearls of the English Crown, from Henry VIII to 1937 – three of them missing.
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L'Étrange Monsieur Victor (1938)
Character: Victor Agardanne
Outwardly, Monsieur Victor would appear to be the model citizen. A respectable Toulon shopkeeper, he has a devoted wife and is courteous and considerate to all who know him. However, beneath this veneer of respectability hides a notorious receiver of stolen goods, who trades with hardened criminals. Victor manages to keep up his double life without any difficulty until the fateful day when one of his partners in crime threatens to expose him. Fearing a scandal, Victor kills the crook in a moment of panic, using a shoemaker's tool. Naturally, the murder is blamed on a local shoemaker, who is sentenced to ten years' hard labour. Seven years later, the former shoemaker reappears in Toulon, having escaped from prison. The first person to recognise him is Monsieur Victor...
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Les Trésors de Marcel Pagnol (2019)
Character: Self / C. Olivier / A. Castanier / ... (archive footage)
The works of Marcel Pagnol are a veritable monument of French cultural heritage. Based on previously unseen archive material, film extracts, novels, plays, interviews and letters, the film pays tribute to the major author and popular filmmaker, who made his life a work and his work a life's project.
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Ces messieurs de la Santé (1934)
Character: Gédéon - Jules Tafard
Banker Jules Taffard, a true financier, is a shrewd money-handler. Imprisoned for an alleged swindle, his trial seems to be upsetting those in the government, who may not be so far removed from Taffard's affairs (Affaire Alexandre Stavisky). He escapes from La Santé prison without any difficulty, and the authorities don't seem to be doing anything to find him... Under the false name of Gédéon, he becomes a modest handyman in a corset shop run by Madame Génissier, whose morality is as pious as it is legendary. Her son, Hector Génissier, is a foolish young man with no ambition, much to the regret of his young wife, Fernande Génissier. But it won't be long before Gédéon shows his skills in expanding the modest family business. How far can Gédéon's ascent go before Taffard's voice resounds through Gédon?
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Le Colonel Chabert (1943)
Character: Colonel Hyacinthe Chabert
The story of a French officer who is assumed dead during the Napoleonic Wars, but returns ten years later to a very different France, both on a political and personal level. The film is based on the novel Colonel Chabert by Honoré de Balzac.
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Marius (1931)
Character: César Ollivier
César runs a bar along Marseilles' port, assisted by his 23-year-old son, Marius. Friends since childhood, Fanny and Marius love each other, but Marius has a secret wanderlust: every ship's whistle stirs a longing for foreign lands. When M. Panisse seeks Fanny's hand in marriage and when a departing clipper needs a deckhand, Marius and Fanny must decide who and what they love most. César, with his generous, wise spirit, tries to guide his son.
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Tartarin de Tarascon (1934)
Character: Tartarin de Tarascon
Tartarin is the local hero in the small provincial town of Tarascon. He shows off about imaginary adventures in Africa, where he has never been, as a Lion Hunter, which he is only in his imagination. Even though the locals know he has never been to Africa, they keep hoping he will leave one day. After a misunderstanding, and much gossip, everyone thinks that Tartarin plans to actually take the trip.
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Untel père et fils (1943)
Character: Uncle Jules Froment
The story of how the people of Paris cope with the strains and struggles of war, from the siege of the city by the Prussians during the Franco-Prussian War of 1871 to the invasion by the Germans in World War II.
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Gribouille (1937)
Character: Camille Morestan
Camille Morestan serves as a jury member at a court in Paris. The attractive Natalie Roguin is accused of murder. Morestan doesn't want to believe she really killed her lover. He succeeds in convincing the other jury members she was innocent. After her acquittal he takes her into his house. While he tries to keep her identity a secret for his family her presence leads to a number of unfortunate incidents.
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Faisons un rêve... (1936)
Character: Le Mari
A husband who has just cheated on his wife returns home in the early morning, puzzled. He finds there, without knowing it, the lover of his wife, to whom he confesses his infidelity.
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Les gueux au paradis (1945)
Character: Boule
In a Provençal village, two jolly good fellows, Boule and Pons, decide to dress as Saint Anthony and Saint Nicholas for the distribution of presents to the children on the feast of Saint Nicholas. They unfortunately get killed by a cart and find themselves in Hell where Lucifer and his demons duly torment them. They are saved by a prayer which helps them to climb the stairway to Paradise. Saint Peter, taken in by the applicants' disguise, lets them in. When the two true Saints show up, trouble follows. Luckily, thanks to the intervention of the Virgin Mary, the two friends are acquitted at their celestial trial and allowed to return to Earth.
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César (1936)
Character: César Ollivier
Leaping forward twenty years, the trilogy continues with the death of Fanny's husband, Panisse, and the discovery of her secret by her son, Césariot. The young man resolves to track down his biological father, Marius, whose life has been fraught with calamity and poverty.
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L'École des cocottes (1935)
Character: Labaume
Ginette, a Parisian seamstress, lives poorly but happily with her musician lover. When Count la Ferronnière offers to teach her the manners and behaviours that will open her the doors to a richer world, she quickly chooses wealth over love.
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Noix de coco (1939)
Character: Loulou Barbentane
A small town gentleman learns that his prim and proper wife was once a showgirl, and that, even worse, he had enjoyed a one night stand with her in the Orient.
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Fanny (1932)
Character: César Olivier
Soon after Marius's departure, Fanny learns that she is pregnant with his child, to the disappointment of her mother and of Marius's father, César. To secure a better life for her unborn child, she accepts a marriage proposal from the aging widower Honoré Panisse.
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Vous n'avez rien à déclarer ? (1937)
Character: Jules Papillot
A timid young man marries the daughter of the entomologist he works for. On the train for their honeymoon, he takes his young wife in his arms when a customs officer suddenly enters the compartment. The groom is now inhibited.
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J'ai une idée (1934)
Character: Aubrey Harrington
Aubrey is a debt-ridden man. One day, he has the idea of faking his death and taking on the role of a deceased cousin about to receive a beautiful inheritance. This idea will, however, lead him to very difficult situations.
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La Femme du boulanger (1938)
Character: Aimable Castanier
In this little Provencal village, a new baker, Aimable, settles down. His wife Aurelie is beautiful and much younger than he. She departs with a shepherd the night after Aimable produces his first breads. Aimable is so afflicted that he can not work anymore. Therefore, the villagers, who initially laughed at his cuckoldry, take the matter very seriously (they want the bread) and organize a plan to find Aurelie and to bring her back to the bakery.
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Le fauteuil 47 (1937)
Character: Juste Auguste Theillard
A young man marries the daughter of a famous actress, but is visibly more attracted to his stepmother. She manages, not without difficulty, to reconnect the bonds of a vacillating household.
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Un carnet de bal (1937)
Character: Francois Patusset
After the death of her husband, Christine realizes she has possibly wasted her life by marrying him instead of the man towards whom, in her youth, she had a stronger inclination. To overcome these dreary thoughts, she decides to find out about him and the other men who danced with her during a ball that was a turning point in her life, many years ago. She pays a visit to those forgotten acquaintances one after the other; Christine is not only surprised to see how they have fared, but also discovers the impact she had, unknowingly, on the feelings and the destiny of these persons.
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Gaspard de Besse (1935)
Character: Samplan
The gratuitous murder of his father and the misery of the people, aggravated by a succession of bad harvests, lead Gaspard, a great admirer of Mandrin and blacksmith by profession, to revolt. With his companion Samplan, he finds himself at the head of a handful of soldiers dissatisfied with their fate and a band of brigands. They steal money from the rich to give it to the poor, like highwaymen, vindicators with a big heart. In their eyes, things cannot go on like this, in this country which seems given over to the decadence of the nobility and the whims of an indolent king. Gaspard and his troupe are responsible for making it known.
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Les Inconnus dans la maison (1942)
Character: Maître Hector Loursat
Loursat, a lawyer, lives with his daughter Nicole in a sinister and vast bourgeois residence. Abandoned for nearly twenty years by his wife, the brilliant lawyer has sunk into alcoholism and his relationship with his daughter is virtually non-existent. However, one day the corpse of a stranger is discovered in the residence of Loursat. Nicole, who frequents a gang of young people who escape boredom by stealing cars and other objects, is immediately suspected.
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Godasse Fumiste (1912)
Character: N/A
A bourgeois couple, noticing a smoke leak in their heating system, called on Godasse to repair the problem.
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Les Petits Riens (1941)
Character: Charpillon
Following a broadcast on the radio, each of the listeners remembers these "little nothings" (the title is borrowed from a play by Mozart), which have often changed their lives. Each of these stories told will prove that a tiny detail in life can change an entire destiny.
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Les rois du sport (1937)
Character: Acteur
Jules and Fernand are two boys from the Café des sports in Marseille who take part in their corporation's annual race.
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Le Bienfaiteur (1942)
Character: Monsieur Moulinet
A kind and generous village noble, specializing in good works, actually leads a double existence and carries out dishonest activities.
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