Movies: Marcel Achard

Inspector Jacques Clouseau, smitten with the accused maid Maria Gambrelli, unwittingly turns a straightforward murder investigation into a comedic series of mishaps, testing the patience of his irritable boss Charles Dreyfus as casualties mount....

Outwardly, Monsieur Victor would appear to be the model citizen. A respectable Toulon shopkeeper, he has a devoted wife and is courteous and considerate to all who know him. However, beneath this veneer of respectability hides a notorious receiver ...

In late 19th century France, the Countess Louise, wife of a wealthy general, sells the earrings her husband gave her on their wedding day to pay off her secret debts, then claims to have lost them. Her husband quickly learns of the deceit, which is t...

André is a loving and attentive husband, but when he agrees to plead his enamored brother's case with student Françoise Massard, he in turn becomes infatuated with the beautiful woman, who is perpetually in search of true love through a series of haz...

Handsome and rich Spanish gentleman abandons his wife and riches for his love of a young girl of poor stock who taunts and degrades him....

Rudolf, the only heir to Emperor Franz Josef of Austria-Hungary, is trapped in a loveless marriage to a Belgian princess. As he seeks to flee his stifling environment, he meets the beautiful Maria, and the two enter into a scandalous affair. Despite ...

Stop-motion photography blends with extreme slow-motion in Clair's first and most 'dada' film, composed of a series of zany, interconnected scenes. We witness a rooftop chess match between Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, a hearse pulled by a camel (and c...

After stealing a diamond from Mylène Demongeot, Richard hides it inside a guitar. But on returning to the music shop he discovers that the precious instrument has just been sold! The problem is complicated by the fact that five stars all bought the s...

Paris, 1937. Winckler kills his enemy Gordon, a Chicago mobster, from the stage of a Parisian music hall, where he performs telepathy. He pays another artist, Helene, so that she tells the police they've spent the night together, which doesn't fool C...

In this experimental film, Isidore Isou, the leader of the lettrist movement, lashes out at conventional cinema and offers a revolutionary form of movie-making: through scratching and bleaching the film, through desynchronizing the soundtrack and the...

Anthology of four love stories that have some historical basis....

A drifting woman hangs out in the suburbs of Marseille. A young engineer picks her up drunk and takes her to the hospital. He does not know then that it is the Countess Armance de Lunegarde, driven from her home and performing as a gummy in third-rat...

Petrus, a Montmartre photographer, is accidentally wounded by Migo, a dancer at the Frou Frou night club, when she is trying to shoot her faithless lover Rodrigue, a counterfeiter. Though Petrus tries to reconcile the lovers, Migo lands up with him a...

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A brave bookseller raises his four daughters alone, all of whom he employs in his shop. They are especially interested in their sentimental stories. Rosine, the youngest, falls in love with Francis, fiancé of Edith, the eldest. But Francis pushes her...

Camille Morestan serves as a jury member at a court in Paris. The attractive Natalie Roguin is accused of murder. Morestan doesn't want to believe she really killed her lover. He succeeds in convincing the other jury members she was innocent. After h...

One Christmas Eve, a carefree young man, Eric, arrives in a small provincial town. Here, he meets Julien, a bar pianist who is his exact double. Julien is in love with Marinette, a pretty waitress, but he is too shy to make any romantic overtures. ...

Celestin works as an organist at a girl's school. By day, Celestin is the meek and mild target of the girls' incessant practical jokes. By night, however, he is the celebrated composer of popular operas -- and the romantic vis-à-vis of a celebrated s...

During WW1, a train is stopped by a bombing, a young soldier takes advantage of the opportunity to go to his native village to connect with his love and his family. As WW2 began in the real world, this film was rereleased later in ‘39 under the revis...

During the First World War, a woman doctor falls in love with one of her patients who turns out to be a German spy. She herself ends up working for German intelligence....