Jenny Lamour wants to succeed in music hall. Her husband and accompanist is Maurice Martineau, a nice but jealous man. When he knew Jenny is making eyes at Brignon, an old businessman, in ...
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Dominique Marceau is on trial for the murder of Gilbert Tellier. The counsels duel relentlessly, elaborating explanations for why the pretty, idle and fickle girl killed the talented and ... See full summary »
Director:
Henri-Georges Clouzot
Stars:
Brigitte Bardot,
Paul Meurisse,
Charles Vanel
A psychiatrist, desperate for money to keep his faltering practice running, makes a deal with a spy to hide a mysterious person in his clinic in return for a million francs. As soon as the ... See full summary »
An adaptation of Abbe Prevost's classic French novel 'Manon Lescaut', updated to post-World War II France, in which a former French Resistance activist rescues Manon from villagers who want... See full summary »
Director:
Henri-Georges Clouzot
Stars:
Serge Reggiani,
Michel Auclair,
Cécile Aubry
In 1900, Miquette, the pretty daughter of the widow Grandier, decides to become an actress after seeing a play performed by the Monchablon theatre company. Unfortunately, Madame Grandier ... See full summary »
Stanislas Hassler blazes the development of modern art in his gallery, packed with works of surprising shapes, colours and textures, and where exhibitions turn into media events. Gilbert ... See full summary »
Director:
Henri-Georges Clouzot
Stars:
Laurent Terzieff,
Elisabeth Wiener,
Bernard Fresson
An aging, world-weary gangster is double-crossed and forced out of retirement when his best friend is kidnapped and their stash of eight stolen gold bars demanded as ransom.
A young couple, Renee and Pierre, take one night a room at the Hotel du Nord, in Paris, near the canal Saint-Martin. They want to die together, but after having shooted at Renee, Pierre ... See full summary »
Director:
Marcel Carné
Stars:
Annabella,
Jean-Pierre Aumont,
Louis Jouvet
Jenny Lamour wants to succeed in music hall. Her husband and accompanist is Maurice Martineau, a nice but jealous man. When he knew Jenny is making eyes at Brignon, an old businessman, in order to get some engagements, he looses his temper and threatens Brignon with death. But Jenny went anyway to a rendez-vous at the old man's, who is murdered the same evening. The criminal investigations are lead by Inspector Antoine...Written by
Yepok
Clouzot wrote almost two-thirds of the film only having read the novel years before, recalling it from memory, since it was out of print by the time he started the screenplay. When Stanislas-André Steeman saw the film, he was furious about the differences between the novel and the film. See more »
Goofs
When Antoine is repeating Maurice's deposition to the typist, he says that the confrontation between Maurice and Brignon at the restaurant took place on Wednesday, December 2, 1946. In 1946, December 2 fell on a Monday. See more »
The extraordinarily adorable Suzy Delair plays a statuesque performer obsessed with succeeding in the theater. Her husband and accompanist, played by Bernard Blier, is a composed but jealous man. When he finds out in a less than preferable way that his flashy wife has planned a rendezvous with a lecherous old businessman with the intention of advancing her career, he loses all control and threatens the businessman with murder. Now, at that point, I must stop describing the film to you because it skates on such thin ice with its twists, revelations, ambiguities and suspense that to imply any of it would endanger it. I am not sure how good or bad that is for this French police procedural emanating from the song- and-dance community, though it is certainly interesting that what we do know throughout is who did not do it. We just don't know who did.
The story depends upon the procedure of following clues, where ideal alibis fail and where cautiously created fabrications and deceptions disintegrate. Interestingly, this is a suspense film in which suspense is generated in spite of the knowledge one would traditionally think too much too soon.
Quay of the Goldsmiths is the least dark of Henri-Georges Clouzot's films. It's nowhere near as sinister as the shocking Les Diaboliques, as tragic as the riveting Wages of Fear or as eery as Le Corbeau. Maybe it is due to the vibrance of the dance halls and theater settings of 1940s France, which all work as the milieu of this crime thriller.
Clouzot both understands and approves of his characters, even the more rotten ones, where he has more of a vindictive streak with his other films. Where he may have had understanding for the scheming women in Les Diabolique or the truck drivers who sink to the level of risking horrible death in order to oust themselves from miserable life in The Wages of Fear, there isn't necessarily support or agreement on the part of the filmmaker, for these are characters who plainly made the direct decisions that determine their fate. All the characters in this more settling film have scenes and moments that endear us to them, even the harsh, cold detective played by Louis Jouvet, who worries about his young adoptive son amid all the trouble and despair that happens in his life at any time with the drop of a hat.
There is humor and unabashed sexiness, the latter mostly on the part of Delair, that neutralize the pressure to a degree. Clouzot was quietly practicing his craft, patient till he made his unrelenting later films, in which he would permit his audiences no pardon from the tension.
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The extraordinarily adorable Suzy Delair plays a statuesque performer obsessed with succeeding in the theater. Her husband and accompanist, played by Bernard Blier, is a composed but jealous man. When he finds out in a less than preferable way that his flashy wife has planned a rendezvous with a lecherous old businessman with the intention of advancing her career, he loses all control and threatens the businessman with murder. Now, at that point, I must stop describing the film to you because it skates on such thin ice with its twists, revelations, ambiguities and suspense that to imply any of it would endanger it. I am not sure how good or bad that is for this French police procedural emanating from the song- and-dance community, though it is certainly interesting that what we do know throughout is who did not do it. We just don't know who did.
The story depends upon the procedure of following clues, where ideal alibis fail and where cautiously created fabrications and deceptions disintegrate. Interestingly, this is a suspense film in which suspense is generated in spite of the knowledge one would traditionally think too much too soon.
Quay of the Goldsmiths is the least dark of Henri-Georges Clouzot's films. It's nowhere near as sinister as the shocking Les Diaboliques, as tragic as the riveting Wages of Fear or as eery as Le Corbeau. Maybe it is due to the vibrance of the dance halls and theater settings of 1940s France, which all work as the milieu of this crime thriller.
Clouzot both understands and approves of his characters, even the more rotten ones, where he has more of a vindictive streak with his other films. Where he may have had understanding for the scheming women in Les Diabolique or the truck drivers who sink to the level of risking horrible death in order to oust themselves from miserable life in The Wages of Fear, there isn't necessarily support or agreement on the part of the filmmaker, for these are characters who plainly made the direct decisions that determine their fate. All the characters in this more settling film have scenes and moments that endear us to them, even the harsh, cold detective played by Louis Jouvet, who worries about his young adoptive son amid all the trouble and despair that happens in his life at any time with the drop of a hat.
There is humor and unabashed sexiness, the latter mostly on the part of Delair, that neutralize the pressure to a degree. Clouzot was quietly practicing his craft, patient till he made his unrelenting later films, in which he would permit his audiences no pardon from the tension.