Jean Dréville
1906 - 19971940, main basse sur le cinéma français
Pierre-Henri Gibert
Sarah-Jane Sauvegrain, Louis-Émile Galey
Paris, 1940. German occupation forces create a new film production company, Continental, and put Alfred Greven – producer, cinephile, and opportunistic businessman – in charge. During the occupation, under Joseph Goebbels’s orders, Greven hires the best artists and technicians of French cinema to produce successful, highly entertaining films, which are also strategically devoid of propaganda. Simultaneously, he takes advantage of the confiscation of Jewish property to purchase film theaters, studios and laboratories, in order to control the whole production line. His goal: to create a European Hollywood. Among the thirty feature films thus produced under the auspices of Continental, several are, to this day, considered classics of French cinema.
1940: Taking over French Cinema
La Bataille de l'eau lourde
Titus Vibe-Müller, Jean Dréville
Frédéric Joliot-Curie, Raoul Dautry
A factual reconstruction of the sabotage events which took place to prevent Hitler's Germany from getting the heavy water needed to make an atomic bomb during the Second World War.
Operation Swallow: The Battle for Heavy Water
Le visiteur
Jean Dréville
Pierre Fresnay, Roger Laugier
Louberger, director of an orphanage, is full of praise for a former boarder, Mr. Sauval, who has become their benefactor. One night he arrives and he does not seem to be exactly the man described by Louberger. He has in fact become a crooked lawyer and he is wanted for a crime he has just committed. Despite his efforts he will not escape the police but he will manage to remain, in the eyes of the children, at the height of his legend.
Tainted
La ferme du pendu
Jean Dréville
Charles Vanel, Alfred Adam
A large farm in Vendée. The father is dying and the three brothers and sister swear not to marry not to break up the field. Months pass. Francis, the eldest, took things in hand. For him, the promise to their father is sacred. So he does everything for his brothers and his sister Amanda are not tempted. However, the latter lets himself courted by a young man from the neighboring village ...
Hanged Man's Farm
Horizons sans fin
Jean Dréville
Gisèle Pascal, Jean Chevrier
The life story of famed French aviatrix Helene Boucher is detailed in Horizons sans fin (Endless Horizons). Giselle Pascal stars as Boucher, who is first seen in 1930, leaving her millinery shop behind in favor of the wild blue yonder. Though the world of aviation was still essentially an all-male one (despite England's Amy Johnson and America's Amelia Earhart), Boucher perseveres, eventually breaking all existing male and female speed and height records. A bit slow on the uptake in the dramatic scenes, the film soars (no pun intended) during the aerial sequences. Horizons san Fin was the winner of the Catholic Award at the 1953 Cannes Film Festival.
Endless Horizons
Les affaires sont les affaires
Jean Dréville
Charles Vanel, Robert Le Vigan
Isidore Lechat is a ruthless self-made man whose money allows him to humiliate the others, particularly a ruined noble: he wants his daughter to marry this marquis's son but the girl is in love with a young scientist.
Business Is Business
Die Lederstrumpferzählungen
Jean Dréville
Hellmut Lange, Pierre Massimi
Озеро Онтарио - одна из горячих точек семилетней войны между Англией и Францией за господство в американских колониях. Охотник Натаниэль Бампо и его друг Чингачгук спасаются от нападения индейцев-сиу в форте на берегу озера Онтарио. Вместе с героями обороняются правительственные войска. Помощи осажденным ждать неоткуда, на дворе зима. Поэтому они могут рассчитывать только на собственную изобретательность. К тому же их положение осложняется тем, что в форте явно работает предатель. Здесь Нат Бампо и Чингачгук выступают проводниками и разведчиками английской армии. Здесь они знакомятся с благородным лейтенантом Джаспером и прекрасной Мэйбл Дунхэм...
Die Lederstrumpferzählungen
Les casse-pieds
Jean Dréville
Noël-Noël, Bernard Blier
A series of vignettes, in which Noel-Noel appears as the moderator, lecturer, commentator and leading actor, that examine the bores and pests of everyday life much like Pete Smith and Robert Benchley had done for years in American short subjects. Among those are the Practical Joker who will do anything for a laugh; the Party Entertainer who never stops singing; the Talkative Neigbor who forgets the time; the noisy neighbors who dance the tango all night; and women drivers, people who telephone at meal time, the friend you never saw before and amatuer medical experts. Much use of trick photography, montages, puppets and animation along with some adult Gallic wit and gentle satire.
The Spice of Life
Normandie - Niémen
Damir Vyatich-Berezhnykh, Jean Dréville
Pierre Trabaud, Giani Esposito
A certain number of French fighter pilots who will not accept the Second Armistice at Compiègne nor Vichy's orders decide to join the USSR. Once they have reached Moscow they resume training and form a squadron they call "Normandie". Reinforced in 1944, the squadron wins many victories. Following the acts of valor displayed by its pilots during the Battle of the Nieman River, it becomes the "Normandie-Niemen" squadron for the rest of times...
Normandy - Neman
