Jean Tarride

Hercule, a young peasant, inherits a Parisian newspaper with a large circulation. The editor-in-chief, Vasco, takes advantage of his ignorance to make corruption prevail. But Hercules gradually realizes the role that we make him play.

"Taking its title from John Keats’s early 19th-century poem, this highly personal melodrama finds Dulac interrogating the archetype of the femme fatale. La belle dame sans merci follows a famous actress who was once seduced and abandoned by a rich man and subsequently resolved to become a “merciless woman,” forever scheming to hurt others (men in particular) in a ruthless yet captivating manner. Dulac challenges the Romantic archetype embodied in Keats’s poem by way of symbolist mise en scène, self-reflexive narration, and her typically associative approach to editing, locating a modern ambiguity within the stereotypical figures of 19th-century art." - Film Society of Lincoln Center

Étienne, a very sensitive being, watches helplessly as his mother suffers from his father's infidelities. He tries to seduce his father's next conquest without his knowledge.

The relatives of Jérôme Armandy gather at his château in Provence to hear the reading of his will, with the prospect of an inheritance of seventeen million francs hidden away on the property.

Having fallen madly in love with the daughter of a prison guard, Guignolet climbs the wall to free her. He falls into this prison yard where he ends up being a prisoner in the heart of the delicious daughter of the guard.

René Sabin, engineer, disappointed by failures, leaves his village in the South to go to Paris with friends. In the capital, he befriends dubious people, in particular Alex Krakow who does not disdain shady business. Then comes the war. René is mobilized then returns to the country, and finds with joy his fiancée.

Maigret investigates in Concarneau where the passage of a yellow dog accompanies a series of murders, sowing terror in the population. The police seem helpless. It must be said that it has no significant evidence.