Madame Sans-Gêne

Woman of Destiny

Expressing post-war cultural internationalism, this silent film follows the mysterious Orchid and the man who loves her.

Qui?

Mademoiselle Blanche Durand, in her sixties who lives on the mezzanine level of her property, is found dead, stabbed, inside her home. To enter, the judge had to ask for help from an operator to remove the grate from the small window that faces the street. The door of the flat has two locks and a chain placed inside. Whoever committed the crime could not get out of there or out of the window, since it was embedded in the wall.

Le homard

Léonce in the Countryside

Directed by Léonce Perret.

Sapho

During a transvestite ball, a young provincial meets Fanny Legrand. A great love is born between them. Later, the young man learns that Fanny was a great coquette. He leaves her, he comes back, he forgives. But when he embarks for America, Fanny does not follow him.

Dernier amour

Ninon, a veteran stage artist, resides in her villa in Provence, surrounded by admirers as veteran or more than her. A film crew arrives at the gardens of the town to film some scenes in that beautiful spot. The director and screenwriter of the team will notice the charms of Ninon.

The Lacemaker

Based on the dutch paintings of lacemakers of the same time - the film depicts a poor woman's strive for money to be able to marry her beloved; doing so by entering a local lacing competition.

The Crutches

A film crew goes to a mansion to shoot a movie. The actor playing the thief is confused and is shot by the owner with a shotgun. In compensation, he is taken care of in the house and falls in love with the daughter of the owners.

Beauty Cult

La Possession

La Possession is a 1929 French film directed by Léonce Perret.

The Money Maniac

En route to the U.S., Joe Hoggart persuades several other immigrants to pool their money and purchase a tract of land, which proves to be rich in oil years later. With the assistance of his associate, Bill Shopps, Joe seeks to control the other investors' certificates. He travels to Spain, where he discovers that a partner named Garros has died. Joe kidnaps Garros' daughter, Rolande, and claims that she has also died. After Didier Bouchard, another member of the group, gathers the partners and their heirs together, Joe lures them into a building where, ostensibly, a sale of the land is to take place. Joe imprisons them, but they escape in time to attend the sale. An investor named Milo d'Espail learns that Rolande is still alive and rescues her from Joe. Bouchard marries Thérèse, another of Garros's daughters.

La lumière et l'amour

Esther

The Guardian of Camargue

This charming short film was shot in the Camargue, probably in the same place where Jean Durand filmed his cowboy movies. The plot is very simple. A guardian falls in love with a Parisian. Desperate, he commits suicide when she returns to the capital. But, as always with Perret, we appreciate the framing, the skilful use of the exteriors and the documentary side of life of the time. We see the young Arlesianas in traditional dress go out to collect almonds and return with their baskets to the city. The actor in the role of the guardian overreacts, imitating bombastic despair. But the finale, in which he rides a horse through the waves to find the rest of death, preserves its charm intact. Perret knows how to set the rhythm of a sequence and give it the necessary atmosphere.

Tarnished Reputations

While visiting a small village, popular young artist Robert Williams meets innocent country girl Helen Sanderson and, enchanted by her beauty, induces the girl to pose for him. An attraction develops between them, but just as the portrait is completed, Robert is called back to the city. Helen fails to hear from him again and Robert's neglect draws her to the city, where she is sent to a reformatory on a false charge. Once released, she begs Judge Princeton for help and, feeling sorry for the unfortunate girl, he introduces her to playwright George Wendbourg, who adopts Helen and makes her a great actress. Seeing Helen on stage reawakens Robert's love for her and he begs her for forgiveness. After initially snubbing him, Helen relents and the two finally are reunited.

Sur les rails

Maddened by jealousy, Jacques tries to kill his fellow worker.

Napoleon and Me

Elba island, 1814. Martino is a young teacher, idealist and strongly anti Napoleon, in love with the beautiful and noble Baroness Emily. The young man finds himself serving as librarian to the Great Emperor in exile, whom he deeply hates, yet soon begins recording Napoleon's memoirs, getting to know and learning to value the man behind the myth. Among seductions and affairs, expectations and fears, he will craft a precise portrait that nevertheless will not manage to hide a final, inevitable, disappointment.

Love and Death

In czarist Russia, a neurotic soldier and his distant cousin formulate a plot to assassinate Napoleon.

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

Bill and Ted are high school buddies starting a band. They are also about to fail their history class—which means Ted would be sent to military school—but receive help from Rufus, a traveller from a future where their band is the foundation for a perfect society. With the use of Rufus' time machine, Bill and Ted travel to various points in history, returning with important figures to help them complete their final history presentation.

Time Bandits

Young history buff Kevin can scarcely believe it when six dwarfs emerge from his closet one night. Former employees of the Supreme Being, they've purloined a map charting all of the holes in the fabric of time and are using it to steal treasures from different historical eras. Taking Kevin with them, they variously drop in on Napoleon, Robin Hood and King Agamemnon before the Supreme Being catches up with them.

The Count of Monte Cristo

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.

Goya's Ghosts

Painter Francisco Goya becomes involved with the Spanish Inquisition after his muse, Inés, is arrested by the church for heresy. Her family turns to him, hoping that his connection with fanatical Inquisitor Lorenzo, whom he is painting, can secure her release.

War and Peace

The love story of young Countess Natasha Rostova and Count Pierre Bezukhov is interwoven with the Great Patriotic War of 1812 against Napoleon's invading army.