Gaston Modot

L'Âge d'or

The Man

The film consists of a series of tightly interlinked vignettes, the most sustained of which details the story of a man and a woman who are passionately in love. Their attempts to consummate their passion are constantly thwarted, by their families, by the Church and bourgeois society in general.

Children of Paradise

Fil de Soie

In a chaotic 19th-century Paris teeming with aristocrats, thieves, psychics, and courtesans, theater mime Baptiste is in love with the mysterious actress Garance. But Garance, in turn, is loved by three other men: pretentious actor Frederick, conniving thief Lacenaire, and Count Edouard of Montray.

The Rules of the Game

Edouard Schumacher, le garde-chasse

The Marquis de la Chesnaye and his wife host a weekend gala where a variety of complicated romantic and social entanglements between guests and servants lead to tragedy, all against the backdrop of a looming war.

Grand Illusion

L'ingénieur

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.

Casque d'Or

At the end of the 19th century, during a ball in Joinville, on the outskirts of Paris, Georges, a former delinquent working as a carpenter, meets Marie, a young woman connected to a criminal gang.

Pépé le Moko

Jimmy

Pépé le Moko, one of France's most wanted criminals, hides out in the Casbah section of Algiers. He knows police will be waiting for him if he tries to leave the city. When Pépé meets Gaby, a gorgeous woman from Paris who is lost in the Casbah, he falls for her.

French Cancan

Le valet de Danglard (uncredited)

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.

The Lovers

Coudray

A shallow, provincial wife finds her relationship with her preoccupied husband strained by romantic notions, leading her further towards Paris and the country wilderness.

The Hunchback

Vinto, the mute

The knight Henri de Lagardère wants to avenge the death of his friend, the duke Philippe de Nevers assassinated by the prince de Gonzague, a few years before.

Lucrezia Borgia

Fracassa

French silent film pioneer Abel Gance directs this 1935 classic about Lucrezia Borgia, her brother, Cesare. and her father, Pope Alexander VI -- one of history's most ruthless and ambitious crime families.

The Beauty of the Devil

Gypsy

Henri Faust, retiring after 50 years as a professor in a circa-1700 French university, despairs at the ravages of old age ... whereupon Mephistopheles, agent of Lucifer, appears as a virile, handsome young man and exchanges bodies with him to induce Faust to sign a pact to exchange his soul for renewed youth, riches and power. But though the "new" Faust is attracted by the material improvements in his life, he remains wary of signing, while Mephistopheles, now posing as the aged professor whose body he inhabits, must find a way to trick him into signing the pact - and dissuade him from the love of a gypsy girl who prays for his soul - or find himself damned by his own Master...

Meeting in Paris

The concierge at the Temple (uncredited)

A wealthy young American woman is suddenly cut off by her father while living in Paris. A philosopher, she tries to make a living as a guide in the capital. The Marquis de Cernay, who has his eye on Nancy's portfolio, engages Maurice, a hardworking writer, to follow the young woman. She learns from both of them that they are only interested in her fortune. However, when she learns of the deception, she returns to her usual social life. She will return to him when the Marquis de Cernay has betrayed himself once and for all.

The Devil and the Ten Commandments

Le grand-père

The film consists of seven roughly 15 minute episodes, each showing what will happen if one or more of the Ten Commandments will be broken: Jérome Chambard is warned that he will lose his job if he continues to swear; Françoise Beaufort enamored of a stripper calls on her only to find her married to a janitor who doesn't know what kind of dancing his wife performs; Denis, a Jesuit novice, leaves the order to avenge his sister's suicide, which was provoked by Garigny, who seduced her into prostitution and drug addiction; Philip buys a necklace for Micheline though he is bored with her; a young man find out that his real mother is not Madeleine, but actress Clarisse Ardant; Didier Marin, cashier of a bank, was fired by his boss; the Devil appears as a serpent for Jérome Chambard and the bishop are eating.

Saint Joan the Maid

Lord Glasdall

This relatively straightforward dramatic biography was one of two films commissioned to honor Joan of Arc on the 500th anniversary of her death, but it was soon undeservedly relegated to obscurity in favor of Carl Dreyer's triumphant 'La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc'. The comparison is unfair: Dreyer was an artist, but director Marco de Gastyne certainly proved himself a distinguished craftsman, and his emphasis on the Maid of Orléans early life in Domrémy serves as a picturesque, matching bookend to Dreyer's impassioned courtroom drama.

La Bandera

Legionnaire Muller

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...

Le Billet de mille

Bookmaker

The tribulations of a banknote, from its exit from a counter to its destruction, passing through dozens of hands.

Antoine & Antoinette

Le caissier de la loterie « Les Geules cassées »

1947, in France, Antoine and Antoinette, a young couple living in Paris, lead a monotonous existence: he works in a print shop while she is a shop assistant. But one evening, they regain hope: Antoine finds a winning lottery ticket in his girlfriend's handbag. He decides to cash it in, but loses his wallet. What follows is a series of twists and turns that redefine the couple's priorities while forcing them to remain optimistic.

Elena and Her Men

Le chef des bohèmiens

Set amid the military maneuvers and Quatorze Juillet carnivals of turn-of-the-century France, Jean Renoir’s delirious romantic comedy Elena and her Men stars a radiant Ingrid Bergman as a beautiful, but impoverished, Polish princess who drives men of all stations to fits of desperate love. When Elena elicits the fascination of a famous general, she finds herself at the center of romantic machinations and political scheming, with the hearts of several men—as well as the future of France—in her hands.

Le Cavalier de Croix-Mort

Augustin

Elisabeth D'Anthar cheats on her husband François with Simon De Chabre. François, who suspects something, surprises his rival and wounds him. Elisabeth 's sister, to save the situation, claims that Simon is actually in love with her and came to see her. They have to get engaged and Simon breaks up with his lover. But Elisabeth is not prepared to accept it, and she becomes the head of a gang of "drivers" in order to kidnap her husband. Famous Vidocq intervenes.

Monte Cristo

Fernand Mondego / Comte de Morcerf

Young sailor Edmond Dantès is wrongfully imprisoned, escapes, finds treasure, and reinvents himself as the wealthy Count of Monte Cristo to exact revenge on those who betrayed him.