Daniel Mendaille

In late 19th century France, the Countess Louise, wife of a wealthy general, sells the earrings her husband gave her on their wedding day to pay off her secret debts, then claims to have lost them. Her husband quickly learns of the deceit, which is the beginning of many tragic misunderstandings, all involving the earrings, the general, the countess, and her new lover, the Italian Baron Donati.

Lola Montes, previously a great adventuress, is reduced to being the attraction of a circus after having been the lover of various important men.

Out of prison after a five-year stretch, jewel thief Tony turns down a quick job his friend Jo offers him, until he discovers that his old girlfriend Mado has become the lover of local gangster Pierre Grutter during Tony's absence. Expanding a minor smash-and-grab into a full-scale jewel heist, Tony and his crew appear to get away clean, but their actions after the job is completed threaten the lives of everyone involved.

A biopic of former Emperor of France, Napoleon Bonaparte, tracing the Corsican's career from his schooldays (where a snowball fight is staged like a military campaign) to his flight from Corsica, through the French Revolution (where a real storm is intercut with a political storm) and the Terror, culminating in his triumphant 1797 invasion of Italy.

Prosecutor Etzel discovers that his father has sentenced a man, Leonardo Maurizius, on mere presumptions. He then makes it a point of honor to trace the sources of the case to uncover the truth.

Originally titled Nous Sommes Tout des Assassins, We Are All Murderers was directed by Andre Cayette, a former lawyer who detested France's execution system. Charles Spaak's screenplay makes no attempt to launder the four principal characters (Marcel Mouloudji, Raymond Pellegrin, Antoinine Balpetre, Julien Verdeir): never mind the motivations, these are all hardened murderers. Still, the film condemns the sadistic ritual through which these four men are brought to the guillotine. In France, the policy is to never tell the condemned man when the execution will occur--and then to show up without warning and drag the victim kicking and screaming to his doom, without any opportunity to make peace with himself or his Maker. By the end of this harrowing film, the audience feels as dehumanized as the four "protagonists." We Are All Murderers was roundly roasted by the French law enforcement establishment, but it won a special jury prize at the 1952 Cannes Film Festival.

After resolving to start a new life with his girlfriend Jacqueline, Bastien Sassey decides to give up working as a courier for drugs traffickers. So that he and Jacqueline can make a fresh start he agrees to take on one more job for a large sum of cash, but he betrays his employer.

During the Occupation, Cora takes the place of her dead husband at the head of a Resistance network. One evening, she sympathizes with Bernard, a Swiss journalist. However, he is actually an undercover German officer who is close to the man ordered to find her using an Identikit picture...