Without a Family

At a wedding party involving three beautiful women, a young man should choose the most charming. But a professor intervenes to prevent the verdict, remembering the troubles caused by Paris in a similar situation.

1938, France, Paris, at the Superior Conservatory of Dramatic Art ("Conservatoire Supérieur d'Art Dramatique"). The first-year entrance exams are in full swing. Many applicants, few accepted. Isabelle (Janine Darcey) is one of the few chosen. She joins former students from the second and third years, including François (Claude Dauphin) and Cécilia (Odette Joyeux). They attend the drama class run by Professor Lambertin (Louis Jouvet). The young people, passionate and eager to become comedians, clash in tumultuous love affairs, because by dint of acting, they imagine that life is a farce. François, for example, is in love with Isabelle, who also loves him, but is pursued by Cecilia, his former mistress... "Put art in your life and life in your art!"

Soon after Marius's departure, Fanny learns that she is pregnant with his child, to the disappointment of her mother and of Marius's father, César. To secure a better life for her unborn child, she accepts a marriage proposal from the aging widower Honoré Panisse.

After a crippling injury leaves her husband impotent, Lady Chatterly is torn between her love for her husband and her physical desires. With her husband's consent, she seeks out other means of fulfilling her needs.

There's never a dull moment at the Hôtel du Libre Echange. Deceptions, hitches and other misunderstandings make a few people mingle whereas, for their own sake, they should not. An example among others: an expert who has come to the hotel for professional reasons had better not meet his wife, who is there to cheat on him with his best friend.

At the beginning of the 20th century, in the North of the Province of Quebec. After five years spent in a boarding school, Maria Chapdelaine comes back to the family farm. Robert Gagnon, a villager and childhood friend, loves her secretly but Maria is wooed by Lorenzo Surprenant, a man who has fled his home town to escape the police. The one she is really in love with is François Paradis, a handsome trapper. The latter promises to marry her in the spring, as soon as he is back from the Far North. Robert, who is aware of how miserable Maria is, writes a letter to François , asking him to come back at once. Unfortunately, the young trapper is buried under the snow during a storm. As for Lorenzo he gets gunned down by the police. Finally understanding that Robert has sacrificed himself out of love for her, Maria accepts to become his wife.

The mistress of an engineer meets the man's pregnant wife and decides to give up the liaison.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the destiny of Félicie Nanteuil, a young girl from the provinces who became a big star on the stage thanks to a comedian who committed suicide out of love for her.

Due to an urgent need of money, aspiring writer Agnes participates in an amateur striptease contest. Her new boyfriend, Daniel, who is a reporter by profession, covers the contest for his magazine.

Political turmoil convulses 19th-century Russia as Razumov, a young student preparing for a career in the czarist bureaucracy, unwittingly becomes embroiled in the assassination of a public official.

Jean Brevent still did not understand the departure of his wife, Danielle Darieux. It's been five years, but he still can't forget her. In spite of a work of writer originator in a newspaper, in which it tried to be invested completely, time did not make its work. One day, by chance, he meets her in the bus...

A one-night stand with an entertainer threatens to destroy a woman's marriage after she gives birth to a black child.

Petrus, a Montmartre photographer, is accidentally wounded by Migo, a dancer at the Frou Frou night club, when she is trying to shoot her faithless lover Rodrigue, a counterfeiter. Though Petrus tries to reconcile the lovers, Migo lands up with him after Rodrigue is finally killed by another jealous dancer.

The spirit of a vengeful female vampire is released from her grave and possesses a wealthy young woman of nobility, who preys on other women in her village.

A beautiful 18-year-old orphan escapes from a reformatory and hooks up with a gang of jewel smugglers, and decides on a life of crime. However, she falls for and marries a policeman, putting a crimp in her criminal career.

A film made up of four sketches. In Marc Allégret's Sophie, a naive high-school girl invents a love affair with her mother's lover. But it's a guitarist with whom she falls in love. In Françoise, by Claude Barma, a young woman returning to France after living in the United States has an affair with her best friend's lover. In Antonia, by Michel Boisrond, a middle-aged woman tries to convince her ex-lover that she still has many assets to seduce. In Ella, by Jacques Poitrenaud, a Pigalle dancer meets a man in a cab.