La Possession

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

Directed by Léonce Perret.

A charming little couple is watched by the misfortune that hides under the disturbing and enigmatic features of a femme fatale.

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.

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.

To fulfill her Father's wish, Grand Duchess Aurora (Huguette Duflos) is forced into an unhappy marriage with Grand Duke Rudolph (Henry Houry). He prepares to leave for the Congo but is murdered by his own brother (Georges Vaultier). Aurora goes to Paris with her father and, there, is told on the phone of her husband's death. After returning to the Kingdom, she meets a tutor (Jaque Catelain) who falls in love with her..

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.

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.

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.

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.