L'art et la manière de rire

In order to please Martineau, a wealthy industrialist, cynical Gabory accepts to organize a rigged beauty contest whose winner will be Françoise, Martineau's young mistress. However, there are other comely contestants among whom Christiane, the daughter of a general, Jackie, an unemployed actress, Colette, the daughter of a distiller and Marie, a secretary engaged to serious-minded construction foreman Robert. So, will things turn out exactly the way Martineau and Gabory want them...?

A couple of dancers performs in a night club. The man is jealous of Gina, his partner,and keeps making scenes to her, going as far as bullying her on the stage during their act. A man gets killed. The dancer is suspected for being jealous of all the other men. Another potential culprit could the father of Gina since he overprotected his daughter. The real culprit will be unmasked after the police detective finds the murder has something to with the Occupation period.

In 1525, on the evening of the Battle of Pavia, François 1er was taken prisoner by the armies of Charles-Quint, with the Constable de Bourbon on their side. His mother, regent of the kingdom, commissioned the king's loyal equerry, Antoine de Montpezat, to raise a ransom of two million ecus and send it to Madrid. Despite the treachery of Vandoeuvre, governor of Languedoc and supporter of the connétable de Bourbon, who has his eye on the French throne, Montpezat accomplishes his mission and is reunited with his fiancée, who had almost married the traitor Vandoeuvre.

A lieutenant, at the head of a commando ready to land in France, finds among his men a maquisard who had tried to kill him in the past.

In 1935, in the Burgundian village of Valromey, Commissioner Desbordes was the very unpopular leader of the anti-alcoholic league. His own brother, Pimpin, is an unconditional defender of the vineyard. Pierre Moreau is, for his part, the representative of a hygienic drink, the "Koku-Kolu". The cafe owner's daughter, Rose, will find the man very to her liking and will manage to seduce him.

Kohlman, the attorney for the Fournil bank, diverts money from the institution. To hide his malpractices, he imagines to remove the director, the young and overconfident Clement Fournil, during a cruise at sea on the yacht Emile Frechisse.

Naive and good-hearted Léon Ménard arrives in Paris, determined to find work in the capital. In a café, he meets Bob, a seedy guy, who helps him to get a job. On cloud nine, the ingenuous young man, does is unaware of how Bob manipulates him. Having become the night concierge of a hotel, the thankful Léon lets Bob and his accomplices get into the pace. Jewels are stolen as a result.When he is accused, Leon refuses to incriminate his "friend". Fortunately, Charlotte, Léon's fiancé, manages to find evidence of Bob's guilt and thanks to a premium paid by the diamond dealer the two lovebirds can buy a grocer's shop and tie the knot.

The evocation of Paris in the 1920s mingles with the rapid rise of the irresistible Caprice, a talented singer, and her tumultuous love affair with Jeff the composer. A photographer nicknamed Bagnolet, a gentle anarchist, gently monitors the activities of Caprice, who has become Lady Paname and, in the absence of morality, makes love triumph.

An American is on the run in the streets and back alleys of France.

To conceal his nighttime infidelity from his wife Gisele, Pierre calls in a particularly shady private detective to concoct an alibi. He is introduced to a certain Robert Crémieux, who will pass himself off to Gisèle as a childhood friend with whom he spent the night until the early hours of the morning. The so-called childhood friend turns out to be a delinquent accused of burglary and rape on the very night he was supposed to be with Pierre. Pierre is immediately suspected of being his accomplice and, trapped by his own turpitude, arrested. Entangled in his lies and denials, he has to admit his infidelity to get out of the impasse.

A young woodcutter turned into a boxer, learns the sad fact that some of his triumphs have been stage managed, and confronts his nasty manager.

As he explains to the journalist who came to interview him, Honoré cultivates, as a perfect Marseillais, farnienté and galéjade. He evokes the Phocaean Protis, who founded the city of Marseille, and the Roman Honorius, who invented pétanque. He loves to go fishing with his friends Garrigue and Watermelon to prepare a good bouillabaisse, and even more, to rig the results of a vote to allow a little protégée to be crowned Miss flots bleus.

Pierre Cousin, a depressive compositor, wants to die. After five vain attempts at committing suicide, he decides to hire professional hit men to do the job on him. But as he's waiting for death, he accidentally saves a suicidal young woman's life... and falls in love. Having suddenly found a reason to live, he now fears the killers he himself hired. Is there still time to call off his contract?

Martine runs a sports center for women ,but they are short of the readies. To avoid seizure,she turns her health club into a nightclub with plenty of whiskey and wild women.

Due to financial problems, the boarding-school of Saint-Loup is on the verge of closing its doors. In desperation, Jacquelin, the headmaster, has the idea to invite former students to a fund-raising reunion. Among the alumni, three men whose common point is to have been in love at the time with the headmaster's niece. One is a banker, the second a priest and the last one a globetrotter. All of a sudden, the peace of the assembly is disturbed: Jacquelin's niece has just been murdered.

Is it because his father was a groom that Adhémar Pomme has a long horse head and a horse- toothed smile? Maybe but the fact is that his head has invariably caused laughter whatever the circumstances, which is the tragedy of his life. After having worked as an undertaker, a theater prompter, a casino bouncer, and so on, and failing at each job, he applies out of desperation to an institution where those rejected for physical reasons can hide and live together. But Adhémar immediately starts... laughing at them and gets kicked out as a result! In the end though, he finds his way as a circus artist.