Gérard Blain
1930 - 2000
Voici le temps des assassins...
Julien Duvivier
Jean Gabin, Danièle Delorme
In Les Halles, in the heart of Paris, the restaurateur André Chatelin, leads an uneventful life until the arrival from Marseille of Catherine, the daughter of his ex-wife Gabrielle. She tells him her mother is dead and that she is without resources. Chatelin welcomes her under his roof - then marries her. Gérard, a young student that Chatelin looks upon as a son, becomes Catherine's lover, and she sets him at odds with Chatelin. She asks him to kill the restaurateur. He refuses. She kills him. Having discovered that Gabrielle is still alive, declined and drug addicted, Chatelin realises the darkness of Catherine's soul who has always lied to him.
Deadlier Than the Male
The American Friend
Wim Wenders
Dennis Hopper, Bruno Ganz
Tom Ripley, an American who deals in forged art, is slighted at an auction in Hamburg by picture framer Jonathan Zimmerman. When Ripley is asked by gangster Raoul Minot to kill a rival, he suggests Zimmerman, and the two, exploiting Zimmerman's terminal illness, coerce him into being a hitman.
The American Friend
La Machine
Paul Vecchiali
Jean-Christophe Bouvet, Sonia Saviange
Pierre Lentier murders an 8-year-old in horrendous circumstances. This 30-something solitary factory worker who lives on the edge of society is sentenced to death. A damning indictment of the death penalty and the manipulative behaviour of the media.
La Machine
Le rebelle
Gérard Blain
Patrick Norbert, Michel Subor
After the death of his parents, Pierre is forced to care for his younger sister Nathalie by committing petty crimes. In a recurring motif of Gérard Blain’s cinema, Pierre is taken under the wing of an older gay man, Hubert , who offers him work and financial security; but when Hubert makes advances to him, Pierre robs him and takes up with a group of radical leftists who are planning terrorist attacks. Without employment, Pierre loses Nathalie to child services and spirals into desperation, finally erupting in an act of horrific violence. An x-ray showing the largely undiagnosed sickness of its time, and a stern warning to ours.
The Rebel
Les Cousins
Claude Chabrol
Gérard Blain, Jean-Claude Brialy
Charles is a young provincial coming up to Paris to study law. He shares his cousin Paul's flat. Paul is a kind of decadent boy, a disillusioned pleasure-seeker, always dragging along with other idles, while Charles is a plodding, naive and honest man. He fell in love with Florence, one of Paul's acquaintances. But how will Paul react to that attempt to build a real love relationship ? One of the major New Wave films.
The Cousins
Le Pélican
Gérard Blain
Gérard Blain, César Chauveau
Paul has been imprisoned for ten years for passing counterfeit money. He feels victimized enough, both for the prison time and for the crime which led to it; he committed the crime to give his wife the nice things she asked him for. When he discovers that she has remarried a quite wealthy man, he is outraged. However, his ire is not due to her disloyalty to him; he loved their only son to distraction, and now the boy has no knowledge or memory of him.
Le Pélican
Le Beau Serge
Claude Chabrol
Gérard Blain, Jean-Claude Brialy
François returns to his village after a long absence. He finds his friend Serge who has married Yvonne, and has developed an alcohol problem after the death of their stillborn child. Serge has become an angry, bitter figure not unlike the roles of James Dean, refusing to face reality and adulthood and François must help him.
Le Beau Serge
The "Friends"
Gérard Blain
Philippe March, Yann Favre
Philippe is an older man and an industrialist whose wife is confined to her bed. They have no children. As he is preparing to go on a vacation to the seaside, he strikes up an acquaintance with Paul, a young working-class boy, and decides to bring him along. This is Paul's first glimpse of how the other half lives, with their first-class hotels and so on. When he meets some aristocratic young people at the resort, he tries to put over the fiction that he is of their class, with poor success.
The Friends
Les Mistons
François Truffaut
Gérard Blain, Bernadette Lafont
A group of young boys have a collective crush on Bernadette. As a result of this, they have an unreasoning jealousy of Gérard, and do everything they can to disrupt their relationship. When Gérard catches one of the young boys spying on them, he thrashes him severely. In retaliation, the children try to inspire Bernadette to doubt Gérard’s love.
The Mischief Makers
