Claude Autant-Lara

  • Claude Autant-Lara – Le diable au corps AKA Devil in the Flesh (1947)

    Claude Autant-Lara1941-1950DramaFranceRomance
    Le diable au corps (1947)
    Le diable au corps (1947)

    During World War I, underage student Francois Jaubert meets and falls in love with Marthe Grangier, who is engaged to Jacques, a soldier at the Front. Though Francois pursues her ardently, they become separated and she marries Jacques. But when Marthe and Francois meet again, their mutual feelings prove stronger than ever, and they begin an extramarital affair…regardless of potentially tragic consequences. Written by Rod CrawfordRead More »

  • Claude Autant-Lara – Vive Henri IV… vive l’amour! (1961)

    1961-1970Claude Autant-LaraComedyFrance

    Synopsis
    In his 56th year, King Henri IV, Count of Navarre, is having problems with his wife, Marie de Medicis. Marie has many reasons to be jealous of the king’s two mistresses, Jacqueline de Bueil and Henriette d’Entrague, particularly as the latter has borne him children. One day, Henri makes a big decision. He will put a definitive end to his amorous liaisons and instead live a more quiet life. Alas, the king’s resolutions never last long. At a dance organised by the queen, Henri cannot help noticing the ravishing Charlotte de Montmorency. Although Charlotte is officially engaged to a man named Bassompierre, the king is determined to take her as his mistress and contrives a plan. He will invite Bassompierre to marry another lady, which he surely cannot refuse to do if he is to remain faithful to the king. He will then marry Charlotte to the Prince de Condé, a young man who prefers horses to women. Henri is sure that Condé will have no objection to him making overtures to his wife. Even a king can make mistakes…Read More »

  • Claude Autant-Lara – Le Bois des Amants AKA Between Love and Duty (1960)

    1951-1960Claude Autant-LaraDramaFrance

    Synopsis
    Brittany, Christmas 1943. Herta von Stauffen, a German soldier, makes an attempt to join her husband, Colonel von Stauffen, whom she has not seen since their wedding day. But Von Stauffen has orders to celebrate Christmas with his troops and so Herta is sent to the house of the widow Parisot, an old woman who regards Herta as an enemy because she is a German. That evening, a Frenchman lands by parachute in the nearby woods. His mission is to prepare for an attack by British soldiers. This man is Charles, the son of Madame Parisot, whose home offers a natural hiding place. Neglected by her husband, Herta begins to fall in love with Charles. Events take an explosive turn when Colonel Von Stauffen gives the order for the mysterious parachutist to be found…Read More »

  • Claude Autant-Lara – Le Franciscain de Bourges AKA Franciscan of Bourges (1968)

    Drama1961-1970Claude Autant-LaraFrance

    Synopsis
    Story of a German Christian prison guard and the way in which he helped his prisoners.Read More »

  • Maurice Lehmann & Claude Autant-Lara – Fric-Frac (1939)

    1931-1940Claude Autant-LaraComedyCrimeFranceMaurice Lehmann

    Synopsis:
    Marcel works as assistant to a jeweller whose bossy daughter Renée keeps hitting on him. When he meets lovely Loulou and her lazy friend Jo, he is fascinated by the girl and somehow attracted by their world : Loulou and Jo are crooks. As Marcel naively tries to bring some morality in their lives, the pair turn him into an unwilling accomplice in the robbery of his boss’s jewels.Read More »

  • Claude Autant-Lara – Fait-divers (1923)

    Claude Autant-Lara1921-1930ExperimentalFranceShort FilmVideo Art

    Young Autant-Lara’s (1901-2000) avant-garde debut, made a decade before his first feature and two decades before his breakthrough. It features his mother, who was a famous actress, as well as Antonin Artaud, who was a friend of the family.
    The films circulates around a triangular love drama with a lot of faux avant-garde effects: filming only hands and feet, rotating camera, dream sequences expressing the tensions between the protagonists etc. etc. Given that this was made many years before Un chien andalou and most of the titles that can be found in Kino’s box sets, this was pretty cutting edge in 1923.Read More »

  • Claude Autant-Lara – La Traversée de Paris AKA Pigs Across Paris AKA Four Bags Full (1956)

    Claude Autant-Lara1951-1960DramaFrance

    Two men, a painter and a poor guy have to cross over Paris by night during world war II and nazi occupation to deliver black market meat. As they walk along dark parisian streets they encounter various characters and adventures.Read More »

  • Claude Autant-Lara – Sylvie et le fantôme AKA Sylvia and the Ghost (1946)

    Claude Autant-Lara1941-1950FantasyFilm BlancFrance

    Synopsis:
    Claude Autant-Lara’s literally haunting romantic tale Sylvia and the Phantom stars Odette Joyeaux as Sylvia, an imaginative young girl who lives in an old French castle. Fascinated by a portrait of the lover of her deceased grandmother, Sylvia fantasizes about having a romance with the lover’s ghost. On Sylvia’s 16th birthday, her father decides to amuse the girl by having the “ghost” make an appearance, and to that end engages the services of three men–a valet, a ham actor and a burglar–to impersonate the wraith. Though confused by the fact that the ghost seemingly has three distinct personalities, Sylvia nonetheless falls in love with the burglar, the most handsome of the trio. Disillusioned upon learning of her father’s subterfuge, Sylvia is unfortunately unresponsive when the real ghost (poignantly enacted by comedian Jacques Tati) makes a surprise appearance. Unfairly lambasted by American critics as “worthless,” Sylvia and the Phantom has since taken its place in cinema history as one of Claude Autant-Lara’s most beguiling works. The film was adapted from a play by Alfred Adam.Read More »

  • Claude Autant-Lara – Marguerite de la nuit AKA Marguerite of the Night (1955)

    1951-1960Claude Autant-LaraDramaFantasyFrance

    Quote:
    Truffaut and Godard gave a bad name to the “quality” French cinema that preceded them. This film was one of their pet examples of what they saw as staid, boring, unadventurous cinéma de papa. Without an axe to grind, it is actually a breathtakingly bold modernization of the Faust legend, ravishing to look at with its highly stylized sets (Trauner on LSD) and containing multi-layered undercurrents, including a message on the unthinking destructiveness of youth which seems almost like a prescient reply to its New Wave critics.Read More »

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