In France, in 1930, a supervisor of a boarding school for young offenders seeks to awaken the music by forming a choir, despite the skepticism of his boarding school director.
In Granada in Spain, Sibilla works as a dancer in a squalid cabaret called El Dorado, struggling to earn enough to care for her sick child. The boy's father Estiria, a prominent citizen, refuses them both help and recognition, fearful of jeopardising the engagement of his adult daughter Iliana to a wealthy nobleman. Iliana however slips away from her engagement party to meet her real lover Hedwick, a Swedish painter. Sibilla, in desperation after a further rejection by Estiria, sees an opportunity to blackmail him by locking the lovers overnight in their meeting-place in the Alhambra.
The fictionalized life, and interpreted by himself, of the popular boxing champion Marcel Cerdan. Training sessions, matches, victories, flight to the U.S.A. where the title of world champion is disputed, form the whole subject of the film.
The Marquis de Montauran was appointed to command the Chouans whose first two revolts were crushed. An aristocrat, Marie-Nathalie de Verneuil, is sent by Joseph Fouché to seduce and capture him.
An opera singer travelling with her company on a passenger ship encounters a mysterious young man who she falls in love with.
Belphégor is a gripping movie set in a haunted museum, where a mysterious phantom wreaks havoc. A group of individuals, including an antiquarian, find themselves entangled in an exciting quest to uncover the secret of a treasure chest and the truth behind the phantom's identity. The plot revolves around thrilling chases, suspenseful discoveries, and the unraveling of an ancient curse.
During a crossing, Professor Rabas, a famous tamer, meets a certain Raymonde whom he brings back with him to his circus. The presence of the young woman leads to disagreement between Rabas and his younger brother, Léo; she suggests to the latter to enter the cage of the untamed lions, where he is injured. Rabas and Leo understood the lesson; Raymonde is hunted like an evil beast, and calm returns to the circus.
This relatively straightforward dramatic biography was one of two films commissioned to honor Joan of Arc on the 500th anniversary of her death, but it was soon undeservedly relegated to obscurity in favor of Carl Dreyer's triumphant 'La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc'. The comparison is unfair: Dreyer was an artist, but director Marco de Gastyne certainly proved himself a distinguished craftsman, and his emphasis on the Maid of Orléans early life in Domrémy serves as a picturesque, matching bookend to Dreyer's impassioned courtroom drama.
A film based upon the life of Vidocq, the famous adventurer, who, after numerous prison escapes ceased being a crook, a thief and a counterfeiter, and was employed by Pasquier’s government’istry as director of the crime-fighting Sûreté Nationale.
Elisabeth D'Anthar cheats on her husband François with Simon De Chabre. François, who suspects something, surprises his rival and wounds him. Elisabeth 's sister, to save the situation, claims that Simon is actually in love with her and came to see her. They have to get engaged and Simon breaks up with his lover. But Elisabeth is not prepared to accept it, and she becomes the head of a gang of "drivers" in order to kidnap her husband. Famous Vidocq intervenes.
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.
Inspector Doirel investigates the murder of a man whose servant was found tied up. He discovers very quickly that the servant has lied. The latter ends up denouncing his accomplice who is arrested when he was going to kill the informer.
An ex-businessman, ruined and reduced to living under bridges, uses the name of one of his companions in misfortune, Rothchild, to organize a vast scam.
John Jones has a bald head and a jealous wife, which, to say the least, is a very bad combination. Also John has a long thirst and is very fond of the society of pretty young ladies. This leads to many unhappy occurrences in his home, and finally to a catastrophe.
A young woman flees with her lover, after having killed her brutal husband; hoping to live a few hours of happiness, before his arrest...
After his engagement party with beautiful Aline, Claude, a struggling writer, meets his two closest friends. The trio sets up a daring publicity stunt, involving a fake murder. The scheme backfires as the fake victim gets really dead.
In war against the Poles, the leader Cossack sees itself betrayed by one of his threads, been in love the girl of an enemy.
Abandoned by the father of her child, the begging young mother desperately seeks refuge in a monastery church....
In the Cévennes, Tabusse is a figure of the village. Angry and but also in love, he goes through many adventures.
Tania, a young girl from Central Europe, leaves her home because of her abusive father. Trained, in spite of herself, in the nets of the secret services, she becomes a renowned dancer who travels the major capitals, in search of military information. In 1917, in Paris, she was arrested and sentenced to death. She will be executed despite the fervent defense of her lawyer who has fallen in love with her.