Cardinal Mazarin dies, leaving a power vacuum in which the young Louis asserts his intention to govern as well as rule. Mazarin's fiscal advisor, Colbert, warns against Fouquet, the Superintendant who has been systematically looting the treasury and wants to be prime minister. Fouquet believes Louis will soon tire of exercizing power and overplays his hand by offering a bribe to Louis' mistress to be his ally. She reports this to the king who arrests Fouquet. Louis and Colbert design a brilliant strategy to keep merchants making money, nobles in debt, the urban poor working and fed, and peasants untaxed.
Strange things are happening in the evening at the mansion: glass things break without any apparent reason. Professor Calculus, somewhat apathetic to the whole series of events, leaves the following day to attend a conference on nuclear physics in Geneva. Foreign powers get wind of his work and send their agents to investigate.
André Laroche, an industrialist, has just passed away. Face to his grave, as he is being buried, Anne de Vierne, the wife of a magistrate, confesses to her son François that Laroche was in fact Lupin and that he is his natural child. But he is not the gentleman thief's only offspring! Lupin had indeed another son by a housemaid, Gérard Dagmar, a dancer, magician and - occasionally - burglar. Which complicates the task of François who, to respect the last wishes of the testator, has gone in search of the treasure of Poldavia. For he keeps finding Gérard on his way and his efforts are constantly thwarted by his half-brother. Will Gérard prevent François from becoming the worthy successor to their father or will the two young men decide to join forces? That is the question.
A beautiful and sophisticated teenager is placed in a regimented French girls' boarding school after her father apparently commits suicide over a business scandal. She immediately gains admirers -- a lustful middle-aged artist, a handsome young composer, a fellow female student -- as well as a jealous rival. With the help of her schoolmates, she attempts to elope with the composer, but the adults catch on to the plot, and she is locked into her room at night.
When Emir Feofar Khan, leader of the Tartar hordes, takes up arms and invades the steppes of Eastern Siberia, Czar Alexander II of Russia entrusts the brave officer Michael Strogoff with a dangerous mission.
Tells the story of Mary Tudor and her troubled path to true love. Henry VIII, for political reasons, determines to wed her to the King of France. She tries to flee to America with her love but is captured when she is "un-hatted" on board ship. In return for her consent to the marriage with France, Henry agrees to let her choose her second husband. When King Louis of France dies, Mary is kidnaped by the Duke of Buckingham. He tries to force her to marry him but she is rescued by her love in an exciting battle on the beach.
Just before wowing international critics and moviegoers with his adventure romp Fanfan la Tulipe, director Christian-Jaque dashed off the lampoonish Barbe-Bleue. Ostensibly the story of the famed wife-killing potentate Bluebeard (Pierre Brasseur), this lighthearted costumer begins as the title character is poised to march down the matrimonial aisle for the eighth time. Barbe-Bleue's newest spouse Aline (Cécile Aubry) is kept in line by her husband's claims of murdering her predecessors. But when Aline opens the famous locked door to the equally famous hidden room, both she and the audience are in for quite a surprise. The frivolous nature of Barbe-Bleue is underlined by its pleasing utilization of the French Gezacolor process.
"Olivia" captures the awakening passions of an English adolescent sent away for a year to a small finishing school outside Paris. The innocent but watchful Olivia develops an infatuation for her headmistress Julie and through this screen of love observes the tense romance between Julie and the other head of the school Cara in its final months.
A journalist who deals with the column "courier du cœur" has the absurd idea of launching an investigation into the death of a pianist whom he claims to have been murdered. To dazzle his wife, a reporter for the newspaper, he disguises the facts in such a way that the police suspect him, then declare him guilty. It takes a number of adventures to get him out of this mess and get him back into his section.
Betrayed by his wife, a teacher proceeds to have an affair with a young and pretty student. The two women both find themselves expecting a child. The girl dies during childbirth. In a spirit of revenge and to keep his real son, the scorned husband exchanges the babies.
"Les jeux sont faits," is a fantasy film based on a screenplay by French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. A society heiress and a resistance fighter are tragically killed at the same moment and meet in the afterlife. They are offered a second chance at life if they can prove their love is real or be doomed to roam the earth as ghosts.
The exploits of Chief Police Inspector Chabrier, first before the invasion of France in May 1940 as he fights against spies preparing the coming the Germans, particularly Emmy de Welder, the alleged manager of the Rouen hospital. Later, Chabrier and his men go underground and resist the occupiers whatever the price to pay. When the Liberation comes Chabrier resumes his activities at the French National Police.
Soon after the death of his first wife (whose dowry was inadequate), Charles Bovary, a country doctor in Normandy, marries Emma Rouault. In her new home, Emma finds conflict with her mother-in-law, a husband uninterested in the social whirl, and general discontentment; thereby proving an easy conquest for philanderer Rodolphe. Other lovers follow. Does tragedy await?