René Maupré

L'heureuse mort

Unsucessful writer Théodore Larue is mistakenly believed to be drowned during a vacation at the sea with his wife Lucie. The latter persuades him to play dead because the incident increases his popularity. Théodore pretends he is his brother Anselme. Trouble begins when the actual brother unexpectedly returns from Madagascar.

The Pretty Miller Girl

Franz Schubert retired from Vienna in country for musical writing. He draws his inspiration from a romance with the watermiller's daughter. An operetta in the fifties Vienna style. This is the only movie from Marcel Pagnol in color and the only movie in rouxcolor, a French experimental process derivated from the agfacolor German process.

La dame masquée

A young woman, forced into a loveless marriage, takes a lover.

Lilac

Also known as Lilac, this early Anatole Litvak-directed talkie was based on a play by Tristan Bernard and Charles Henry Hirsch. The story bears traces of the Bertold Brecht-Weill piece The Threepenny Opera, with heroine Lilac (Marcelle Romeo) consorting with the criminal scum of Paris. Lilac falls in love with a handsome detective (Andre Luguet), but he doesn't let his emotions stand in the way of his duty, and in the end he reluctantly turns her over to the authorities. At $120,000, Coeur de Lilas was one of the most expensive movies to come out of France in 1931, but it more than made back its cost at the box-office.

Let’s Go Up the Champs-Élysées

The history of one of France's most famous streets is retold, featuring multiple performances from Guitry himself.

Champagne caprice

Maude, engaged to a doctor, was adopted years earlier by the president of an anti-alcoholic league. A Gypsy violinist falls in love with her, who, after having kidnapped and immobilized the girl's boyfriend, takes her to a villa and, to try to make her give in to his coaxing, has some gypsies offer her champagne.

The Bachelor Girl

Monique is an ingenue, a clueless girl who believes in true love. A marriage is the only thing a decent girl must long for. When she discovers that her future husband has a lover, she rebels against her bourgeois family.

Tarakanawa

Guilty?

Charles Walter, a forestry contractor, has helped Noël Portal to start a new life. When Victor, the new foreman and Charles'wife's lover, is found murdered, everything points to the guilt of the deceived husband. To save his benefactor, Noël decides to accuse himself of the the crime. He is condemned to death.

The Loves of Mary, Queen of Scots

The Dauphin's widow weds a lord and is executed for plotting against the queen.