A deceptive lightness distinguishes this farcical second feature made by Claude Autant-Lara while Germany occupied France. During the reign of Napoléon III, a plucky businesswoman (Odette Joyeux) agrees to receive love letters to a prefect’s wife from a young official, and soon finds herself embroiled in a scandal that inflames a town’s class tensions. A transporting period piece with ornate costumes by Christian Dior, Lettres d’amour paints a blithely pointed portrait of life in a highly stratified society.Read More »
Synopsis: ‘Isabelle dreams of becoming a great actress and so she is over the moon when she is accepted into the Conservatoire, France’s leading drama school. Her talents are immediately spotted by her drama instructor, Professor Lambertin, who is appalled to hear that Isabelle may have to abandon her studies so that she can earn her keep in her adopted parents’ laundrette. Isabelle’s guardians have a change of heart when Lambertin visits them in person and convinces them that his is a noble profession and that their ward has the makings of a fine actress. At the school, Isabelle falls in love with an older student, François, who has a reputation as a lady’s man. When François begins an affair with Isabelle, his former girlfriend Cécilia is consumed with anger and jealousy. She plans to use her theatrical training to inflict on her former lover a cruel and deadly revenge…’ – Films de FranceRead More »
After his wife deserted him, Frédéric Grimaud had to bring up his four daughters alone. Today, as his daughters approach womanhood, they dutifully help him out in his busy bookshop. Rosine, the youngest, has fallen in love with Francis, the handsome fiancé of her sister Edith. Desperate, Rosine telephones Francis to let him know she intends to kill herself. Overhearing this conversation, a young doctor decides to come to the aid of the distressed adolescent…Read More »
Synopsis: Femme fatale Madeleine Robinson is married to Raymond Aimos, a coal miner with a face like a pickled walnut and a libido to match. She wants some action, and what she can’t get from her impotent husband, she looks for elsewhere, first with his best friend Pierre Brasseur, then with his boss Lucien Gallas, who is also dating Brasseur’s kid sister Odette Joyeux.Read More »
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 »
Synopsis Thérèse de Marsanne (Odette Joyeux) kills her lover Pierre as he is an obstacle to her marriage with the wealthy Count of Vetheuil (Jacques Castelot). To get rid of the corpse, she obtains the assistance of Julien (Roger Blin) a poor young boy madly in love with her by promising him ” une nuit d’amour ” (a night of love, title of the film). After his sinister job done, Julien learns from Thérèse herself that he was part of a sordid crime and runs away terrorized, hence becoming the obvious culprit. Hunted down, he will eventually show at at Thérèse’s wedding to get arrested and accept his fate.Read More »
