Raimu

  • Pierre Billon – L’homme au chapeau rond AKA The Eternal Husband (1946)

    1941-1950DramaFrancePierre Billon

    An adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s “Le Eternel Mari”, a somber story of marital infidelity, revenge and near madness, and starring Raimu in his last film appearance.Read More »

  • Henri Decoin – Les inconnus dans la maison AKA Strangers in the House (1942) (HD)

    1941-1950CrimeDramaFranceHenri Decoin

    From frenchfilms.org

    Georges Simenon’s 1940 novel Les Inconnus dans la maison is a brooding study in social breakdown and youth disaffection that contains a powerful critique of western society of the 1940s. The same can equally be said of Henri Decoin’s magnificent film adaptation, one of the earliest and most successful attempts to bring Simenon’s bleak, melancholic world to the big screen. This was the second film that Decoin made for the German-run film company Continental-Films during the Nazi Occupation of France and it could hardly be more different in tone and subject from his first, the American-style romantic comedy Premier rendez-vous (1941).Read More »

  • Marcel Pagnol – La Femme du boulanger AKA The Baker’s Wife (1938)

    1931-1940ClassicsComedyFranceMarcel Pagnol

    Synopsis:
    In this little Provencal village, a new baker, Aimable, settles down. His wife Aurelie is beautiful and much younger than he. She departs with a shepherd the night after Aimable produces his first breads. Aimable is so afflicted that he can not work anymore. Therefore, the villagers, who initially laughed at his cuckoldry, take the matter very seriously (they want the bread) and organize a plan to find Aurelie and to bring her back to the bakeryRead More »

  • Marcel Pagnol – La fille du puisatier aka The well-digger’s daughter (1940)

    1931-1940DramaFranceMarcel Pagnol

    The Well-Digger’s Daughter served to reunite star Raimu and writer/director Marcel Pagnol, who’d earlier scored an international hit with the “Marseilles trilogy” (Fanny, Marius, Cesar). The title character played by Josette Day, is impregnated by aviator George Gray. Her father, Raimu, orders Josette out of the house so that her younger sisters won’t be likewise “corrupted”. There’s many a moment of pathos and hilarity before Raimu realizes the folly of his behavior. Filmed in 1940, just after France’s acquiescence to their Nazi conquerors, The Well-Digger’s Daughter didn’t make it to the US until 1946. (Hal Erickson@All Movie Guide)Read More »

  • René Le Hénaff – Le colonel Chabert (1943)

    Drama1941-1950FranceRené Le Hénaff

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    Synopsis
    Paris, 1817. The wealthy Countess Ferraud is distressed when she begins to receive letters from her husband, Colonel Chabert, who was reported to have died during the Napoleonic wars ten years before. After an attempt to have him committed to a lunatic asylum fails, the now destitute Chabert appeals to a lawyer Derville to help restore his identity and his fortune. The Countess has since remarried and has no intention of surrendering the wealth she inherited from Chabert…Read More »

  • Henri Decoin – Les Inconnus dans la Maison aka Strangers in the House (1942)

    1941-1950ClassicsCrimeFranceHenri Decoin

    Synopsis:
    Since his wife left him, almost twenty years ago, the once brilliant lawyer Loursat has slumped into a life of despondency and drunkenness. He lives in a vast empty house with his teenage daughter, Nicole, with whom he hardly communicates. One fateful day, something happens which pulls Loursat back from the abyss: he discovers a dead body in his house. When his daughter and her group of rebellious young friends are charged with the murder, Loursat decides to take charge of the case.Read More »

  • Jean Grémillon – L’Étrange Monsieur Victor AKA Strange M. Victor (1938)

    1931-1940CrimeDramaFranceJean Grémillon

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    Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote this :

    In his finest work, including this masterful 1938 noir, the remarkable French filmmaker Jean Gremillon (1901-1959), trained as a composer and musician, used mise en scene, script construction, editing, and dialogue delivery to explore the complex relationship between film and music.

    Raimu, one of the greatest French actors, plays the “strange” title hero, a respectable Toulon merchant who secretly operates as a fence for local thieves; after he murders a potential blackmailer, an innocent local shoemaker (Pierre Blanchar) is sent to prison for his crime.

    Seven years later the fall guy escapes, returns to Toulon to see his son, and, unaware of Victor’s guilt, persuades the merchant to shelter him, then becomes involved with his wife.
    Read More »

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