Michèle Brabo

Monsieur Hulot, Jacques Tati’s endearing clown, takes a holiday at a seaside resort, where his presence provokes one catastrophe after another. Tati’s masterpiece of gentle slapstick is a series of effortlessly well-choreographed sight gags involving dogs, boats, and firecrackers; it was the first entry in the Hulot series and the film that launched its maker to international stardom.

Satire of publishing circles, featuring a ferocious boss, Moscat, a successful but handsome author, Maréchal, another successful but bitter author, Bourgine, a writer plagued with ambition, Brégaillon and the hero, Marc Fournier Zola Prize winner. Naive, the latter quickly becomes formidable, especially since his wife's infidelities have provided him with the material for a new novel.

For his final film, Jacques Tati takes his camera to the circus, where the director himself serves as master of ceremonies. Though it features many spectacles, including clowns, jugglers, acrobats, contortionists, and more, Parade also focuses on the spectators, making this stripped-down work a testament to the communion between audience and entertainment.

On the morning of 30 January 1889, the Archduke Rodolphe de Habsbourg and his mistress Marie Vetsera are found dead. The remains of Rodolphe are discreetly repatriated to Hofburg, while those of Marie are hastily thrown disposed into the depths of a tomb.

The accountant of an insurance company, rather eccentric and quick to push the song, is responsible for monitoring the actions of an alluring South American whose suicide would mean the collapse of the company. Finally, the accountant discovers an attempted insurance scam and marries the surly and charming interpreter who was the liaison between the South American and himself.

While investigating the world of Parisian tramps, journalist René Savary, himself disguised as a poor beggar, notices the strange behavior of a little boy. He follows the brat after he has sneaked out of a barge, catches up with him and takes him to his home. There, the kid tells him about himself : his name is Jean, his mother has disappeared and since then he has been left to fend for himself. Moved by the lot of the wretched boy, Savary, with the aid of his friend Pierrot, undertakes to solve the mystery.

The fictionalized life, and interpreted by himself, of the popular boxing champion Marcel Cerdan. Training sessions, matches, victories, flight to the U.S.A. where the title of world champion is disputed, form the whole subject of the film.

Director Jean Delannoy's immediate followup to his brilliant Les Jeux sont Faits was the more conventional Aux Yeux du Souvenir (aka Souvenir and To the Eyes of Memory). The film is based on a true story, wherein an France airliner managed to survive a journey from Rio De Janeiro to Dakar with two of its engines incapacitated. To this already intensely dramatic situation has been added a romantic subplot involving Claire Magny (Michele Morgan) and Jacques Forester (Jean Marais). The love story adds very little to the film; fortunately, neither does it detract from the film's overall quality. As was the case with many French productions of the 1940s, Aux Yeux du Souvenir benefits immeasurably from the Wagnerian musical score by Georges Auric.