Fire at the Mine

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

A French washerwoman becomes a duchess and a friend of Napoleon.

Directed by Léonce Perret.

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.

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.

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..

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

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.

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.

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.