Jean-Paul Le Chanois
1909 - 19851940, 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
Les Misérables
Jean-Paul Le Chanois
Jean Gabin, Danièle Delorme
Victor Hugo's monumental novel Les Miserables has been filmed so often that sometimes it's hard to tell one version from another. One of the best and most faithful adaptations is this 240-minute French production, starring Jean Gabin as the beleaguered Jean Valjean. Arrested for a petty crime, Valjean spends years 20 in the brutal French penal system. Even upon his release, his trail is dogged by relentless Inspector Javert. Valjean's efforts to create a new life for himself despite the omnipresence of Javert is meticulously detailed in this film, which utilizes several episodes from the Hugo original that had hitherto never been dramatized. Originally released as a single film, Les Miserables was usually offered as a two-parter outside of France.
Les Misérables
L'Âge d'Or
Luis Buñuel
Gaston Modot, Lya Lys
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.
L'Âge d'or
L'école buissonnière
Jean-Paul Le Chanois
Bernard Blier, Juliette Faber
По произведению Элизы Фрейне. Паскаль (Бернар Блие), молодой студент педучилища, тяжело раненный на фронте в 1918 году, в октябре 1920-го получает работу в школе деревни Салез департамента Верхний Прованс. Он отказывается от формалистской и армейской дисциплины своего предшественника, старого Арно; например, разбирает на дрова кафедру, чтобы покончить с сыростью в классе. От этой новости старого учителя чуть не хватает удар. Цель учебных методов Паскаля - раскрыть душу, личность каждого ученика и пробудить в детях жажду знаний. Взрослые (в особенности - уважаемые жители деревни) не доверяют его добрым намерениям.
Truant School
L'affaire est dans le sac
Pierre Prévert
Julien Carette, Anthony Gildès
Benjamin Déboisé, a hatter, his salesman and a young man want to kidnap an American millionaire, put him in a bag and hold him to ransom. But they make a mistake: the fellow they find in the bag is not the millionaire himself, but his son...!
It's in the Bag
Papa, Maman, la Bonne et moi
Jean-Paul Le Chanois
Robert Lamoureux, Fernand Ledoux
Утро в домике на холме, недалеко от города Париж, вот уже много лет начинается всегда одинаково. Неприятное дребезжание будильника, монотонное радио, на кухне служанка раскладывает очередной пасьянс, отец вспоминает учения Демосфена, мать готовит завтрак.
Papa, Maman, la Bonne et moi
Monsieur
Jean-Paul Le Chanois
Jean Gabin, Philippe Noiret
Désespéré par la mort de sa femme, le banquier René Duchesne se promène le long de la Seine. Seule la rencontre de Suzanne, son ancienne femme de chambre lui révélant les infidélités de Madame, le sauve du suicide. Monsieur décide alors d'aider sa protégée à sortir de la prostitution, et d'empêcher ses beaux-parents de faire main basse sur l'héritage.
Monsieur
Au Cœur de l'orage
Jean-Paul Le Chanois
Franck Bauer, Abel Bonnard
This documentary about WW II, composed of clandestine Allied film takes and German Wochenschaubilder, focuses on the French Resistance, especially the heroic but disastrous battle of the Vercors plateau in July 1944, where German troops mercilessly slaughtered the Maquis and the inhabitants.
In the Heart of the Thunderstorm
Le cas du docteur Laurent
Jean-Paul Le Chanois
Jean Gabin, Nicole Courcel
Le Cas Du Dr. Laurent (The Case of Dr. Laurent) stars Jean Gabin as a Paris-based doctor who tries to spread the gospel of Natural Childbirth. Working in a cloistered rural community, Gabin runs up against the stone walls of fear and prejudice. His theories are proven sound when unwed mother Nicole Courcel gives birth within Gabin's methodology. The childbirth sequence is filmed straight-on with a delicate combination of taste and frankness. Nonetheless, the lurid ad campaign of Cas Du Dr. Laurent sensationalized this sequence all out of proportion.
The Case of Dr. Laurent
La Française et l'Amour
Michel Boisrond, René Clair
Darry Cowl, Micheline Dax
The seven stages in the life of the modern Frenchwomen are disclosed by seven directors in a witty way: 1 - Childhood, 2 - Adolescence, 3 - Virginity, 4 - Marriage, 5 - Adultery, 6 - Divorce, 7 - The Single Woman.
Love and the Frenchwoman
Papa, maman, ma femme et moi
Jean-Paul Le Chanois
Robert Lamoureux, Gaby Morlay
Robert Langlois is now married to Catherine, the former housemaid. And they would live happily ever after if the housing crisis did not force them to live together with Gabrielle and Fernand, Robert's parents. For, despite the good will on either side, tension soon arises. What else to expect when there is too little space in their Montmartre apartment for four people (then for six then eight, the couple having... two pairs of twins!) ; the continued presence there of Fernand (who loves peace and quiet) after he is driven to retirement ; the difficult beginnings of Robert as a lawyer in a room of the apartment, etc... Other troubles follow and the harried family is on the verge of implosion...
Papa, Mama, My Wife and Me
