1930s French Movies

A group of French soldiers, including the patrician Captain de Boeldieu and the working-class Lieutenant Maréchal, grapple with their own class differences after being captured and held in a World War I German prison camp. When the men are transferred to a high-security fortress, they must concoct a plan to escape beneath the watchful eye of aristocratic German officer von Rauffenstein, who has formed an unexpected bond with de Boeldieu.

The Marquis de la Chesnaye and his wife host a weekend gala where a variety of complicated romantic and social entanglements between guests and servants lead to tragedy, all against the backdrop of a looming war.

In the snow as bells toll, a hooded figure makes its way through the streets to a church.

French silent film pioneer Abel Gance directs this 1935 classic about Lucrezia Borgia, her brother, Cesare. and her father, Pope Alexander VI -- one of history's most ruthless and ambitious crime families.

The story begins at a concert during which Beethoven's Concerto in D major for violin and orchestra is performed. Romaine, a mysterious woman, is in the concert hall. Pierre, her husband, is first violin of the Orchester Colonne. That evening, she discovers Marcel, a brilliant concerto soloist, and falls in love with him. Pierre and Marcel are friends, which complicates the situation. Pierre invites his friend to the house, without suspecting what will happen. The young woman, trying to find a clever pretext for a one-on-one meeting, quickly reveals her feelings to Marcel.

When an up-and-coming singer's career is jeopardized by morphine addiction, her brother takes on the ruthless dope pushers who are intent on keeping her hooked.

On his wedding night with Hilda Bergmann, the daughter of a swedish chemist, the young and rich american Willy Keanton is stabbed by an unidentified masked man. He kidnaps the young woman, who is found later on by the count Robert d'Arbel. The detective Jacques Miral, nicknamed « the pointed tower's ferret » is put in charge of the case. Soon, he discovers that an international bandit, Méphisto, seeks to seize the formula of a process against asphyxiating gas, invented by professor Bergmann. The struggle is tough between Miral and the uncatchable Méphisto. Monique Aubray, Keanton's secretary and engaged to the detective, the Nostradamus stallholders and the « mastiff of Bordeaux », and the famous novelist Fortuné Bidon are also involved in the case...

The rise of a canning maker and then his abandonment of the factory because his ideal of social progress for his workers is undermined by the Board of Directors.

Down a foggy, desolate road to the port city of Le Havre travels Jean, an army deserter looking for another chance to make good on life. Fate, however, has a different plan for him, as acts of both revenge and kindness render him front-page news.

The film consists of a series of tightly interlinked vignettes, the most sustained of which details the story of a man and a woman who are passionately in love. Their attempts to consummate their passion are constantly thwarted, by their families, by the Church and bourgeois society in general.

Remember when Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music says "Every time God closes a door, He opens a window?" Well, this is basically the same philosophy followed by a sage authority named Professor Azais. Though he is never seen in the film, Azais's influences dictates every move made by Le Baron Wurtz (Max Dearly), a private tutor. Though he suffers quite a few setbacks, Wurtz presses on, armed by the Azaiz philosophy that every time something goes wrong in one part of the world, it is balanced by something going right elsewhere. This "law of compensations" pays off in big laughs for the audience, and in a happy-ever-after for Wurtz. Azais was based on a play by Georges Berr and Rene Verneuil.

Produced for the National Federation of Building Workers Ciné-Liberté, a Popular Front organization intended to counteract capitalist interests in the film industry, Epstein’s union documentary examines building policy from the perspective of ordinary workers and notable architects. In addition to touring the Cathedral of Chartres and the Paris Exposition of 1937, the film features rare interviews with Le Corbusier (at his drawing board, no less) and Auguste Perret.

Documentary on the French Alpine expedition to Hoggar in Algeria, starring Roger Frison-Roche, Raymond Coche, Pierre Lewden, and François de Chasseloup-Laubat. The 1935 French Alpine Expedition to Hoggar was conceived and prepared by Lieutenant Raymond Coche, the ideal leader for an expedition that would combine alpine and Saharan terrain in Algeria. Among his goals, he set himself the task of leading a French rope team to the still-untouched summits of Atakor and Tefedest and planting the French flag there. His old friend, Pierre Lewden, an athlete and journalist, was soon on the team, and to complete their project and complete the trio, they called on Roger Frison-Roche, a guide from Chamonix and one of the best climbers of this generation. A few days before their departure from Paris, filmmaker Pierre Ichac joined them.

Having been kicked out by their wives on a wintry night they attempt to smuggle their little dog into an apartment house where dogs are not allowed.

An ex-businessman, ruined and reduced to living under bridges, uses the name of one of his companions in misfortune, Rothchild, to organize a vast scam.

Leaping forward twenty years, the trilogy continues with the death of Fanny's husband, Panisse, and the discovery of her secret by her son, Césariot. The young man resolves to track down his biological father, Marius, whose life has been fraught with calamity and poverty.

On the meandering Canal St. Martin, at the Parisian Hôtel du Nord, a nearly fatal gunshot separates a dejected young couple. But, amid a sad but beautiful panorama of lively characters, love has the final say. Can life be a fairy tale?

A second version of Gance's Napoléon, with sound.

Home movie from Man Ray while on vacation with Pablo Picasso, Paul, Nusch and Cecile Eluard, Emily Davies, Valerie and Roland Penrose. The friends have fun with themselves and performing for the camera.

Captain Justin Mollenard works for a company that sells armaments to the Far East. After an eventful stay in Shanghai, where he and his cargo are the victim of a malicious attack, he returns to his hometown of Dunkirk. Mollenard receives a frosty welcome from his wife Mathilde, who resents the way in which he has neglected his family for so many years. Mollenard’s only wish is to get back to sea as soon as he can, but a sudden heart-attack leaves him paralysed and entirely in his wife’s power...

"Bartosch showed that animation could be poetic... It was Bartosch who first dared to give animation the dimension of a great art, trusting it to voice his pain, to lay bare his heart, to tell of his hope for a better future - which he never saw." - Alexander Alexeieff and Claire Parker, 1969

Denise, an orphaned girl, moves to Paris where she hopes to find work at her uncle's store. But the glamorous department store 'Aux Bonheur des Dames' across the street crushes all the little businesses around. She finds a position there.

A young man-about-Paris, cut off from his father's money, falls in with a picaresque gang of car thieves.

No overview available

In a luxury hotel, a gathering of foreign high society people attend a wedding lunch. By the end of the feast a dramatic turn of events occurs : on the time of leaving the groom realizes that his newly married wife has... disappeared ! One morning, some time later, he meets her again at the Bois de Boulogne. She tells him everything about her strange attitude: she needed to be married to be able to have access to her husband's money. With this money, she managed to avenge her mother.

In 19th century France, Jean Valjean, a man imprisoned for stealing bread, must flee a relentless policeman named Javert. The pursuit consumes both men's lives, and soon Valjean finds himself in the midst of the student revolutions in France.

A beautiful widow gambles away her fortune at baccarat and is forced her to sell her jewels and ask Victor for hospitality. Victor tries to seduce her but she loves the shy Gaston.

An entertainer impersonates a look-alike banker, causing comic confusion for wife and girlfriend.

A visual travel diary on the expedition led by Brondeel in 1934. This expedition to Belgian Congo, by truck, became a testimony to the social conditions of Africans during the colonial era.

The final days of Jesus from the time he enters the city of Jerusalem. Viewed as a threat, it is decided that he must be captured, tried, and executed as a criminal, a plan aided and abetted by disciple Judas Iscariot.

A man from a wealthy family falls in love with a florist, but the lover has to go to war and to leave his darling crying... and giving birth to a child.

Newly married couple Juliette and ship captain Jean struggle through marriage as they travel on the L'Atalante along with the captain's first mate and a cabin boy.

Returning by train to the French port of Le Havre, Jacques Lantier, a tormented railwayman, meets by chance the impulsive stationmaster Roubard and Séverine, his wife.

No overview available

Alain's uncle sends him to France to toughen him with his aviator friend Pierre. He meets Suzanne on the voyage and fights for her love against José in an airplane.

A young aristocrat whose ruined father decided to marry her spends one last night as a bachelor at the boarding school ball. But there, cheerful students strip her of her clothes and she finds refuge precisely with her future husband whom she did not know. Of course, the marriage that was so repugnant to them fills them with joy.

A toy stuffed dog has just been sewn together when it hears a young child ask for an orange. The child's mother explains that they have no money, and so she cannot buy any oranges. The dog is then packed up along with a box full of other toys to be sold, but it soon winds up in the street. The dog picks up an orange from a curb side stand, and hopes to take it home to the child. But that night, before the dog can get back to the child's home, it must face a series of strange and frightening adventures.

The plot revolves around an oil swindle in a South American country.

The young American actor Carl Erikson is the darling of the moment. Whilst in Paris on business, he is signing autographs, including one for Paulette Nanteuil, the actress all the rage in France but a complete stranger to Carl. Charmed by the young woman, he hopes to see her again, but she had given him a false name – that of her friend, Claudine André, a journalist. Meanwhile, Carl Erikson has an interview scheduled with Philippe de Morannes, editor-in-chief of ‘Paris-Soir’ and Paulette’s lover. To thank him for granting him the interview, Philippe unwittingly becomes an accomplice of fate by offering him a ticket to Paulette’s show. Carl sneaks into her dressing room, and Paulette, swept away, gives herself to him for a night of passion. Should she leave Philippe or break up with Carl? Will Philippe succumb to Claudine’s charms, even though she herself is not taken with Carl?

A pompous grocer’s assistant in Marseille annoys a visiting film crew so much that they prank him with a phony acting contract; believing it to be real, the “schpountz” heads to Paris for his new career.