Le Rosier de Madame Husson is an engaging comic farce based on a short story by
Guy de Maupassant. The setting, characters and dialogue are typical creations of
Marcel Pagnol... [More...]
A fine example of French comic farce from the 1950s, Jean Boyer’s Le Passe-muraille
is best known for effectively launching the film career of its star... [More...]
The most notable thing about this low-key comedy is that it marks the film début
of Brigitte Bardot. Far from being the sex goddess which she became a few years
later... [More...]
Swashbuckling action historicals were hugely popular in France in the 1950s, and André
Hunebelle was presumably hoping to capitalise on the success of Christian-Jaque’s 1952
film Fanfan
la Tulipe with his... [More...]
Towards the end of his career, writer and film director Sacha Guitry made three major
historical films, each of which earned him critical acclaim and each of which has retained
an enduring popularity... [More...]
The bringing together of two great comic actors of the calibre of Jean Gabin and Bourvil
could not fail to be great success, but this film surpasses the audience’s expectations
by several hundred kilometres... [More...]
Whilst he is perhaps best known for his social dramas revolving around the deficiencies
of the French legal system, director André Cayatte also made a number of more conventional
melodramas... [More...]
Victor Hugo’s powerful classic novel of revenge and redemption is brought to life in this
magnificent film adaptation, scripted by one of French cinema’s best writers... [More...]
This highly entertaining sentimental comedy provides a veritable conflux for some of the
finest talent in French cinema, which includes Bourvil, Arletty... [More...]
A few years after their successful collaboration on
La Traversée de Paris (1956), director
Claude Autant-Lara and the popular comic actor Bourvil worked together on this light-hearted
farce... [More...]
Le Chemin des écoliers
isn’t so much a film as a head-spinning confluence of some of the most
impressive acting talent in French cinema in the late
1950s... [More...]
Fortunat is an engaging tragicomic melodrama which paints a realistic and moving
picture of life for ordinary folk living in France during the Occupation... [More...]
André Hunebelle directs this swashbuckling historical romp with gusto and a characteristic
cheerfulness, giving French cinema one of its enduring popular classics... [More...]
