Known for Acting
Four vice-presidents fight among themselves to reach the top post after the president dies. Their wives take part in the various schemes to downgrade the opposition by unorthodox means.
When her father died, Dominique de Bellocombes inherited her ancestors' château, some worthless shares and a mine in Spain. To save the castle, which is in danger of falling into ruin, and pay off her debts, she is determined to marry Armand de Puysherbeux, whom she doesn't love, but who is rich. The situation changes abruptly, however, when news comes through that the Spanish mine holds a vein of untapped gold. Dominique leaves for Andalusia, abandoning her fiancé. Her fiancé, determined not to give up on the beautiful Dominique, precedes her to the site, destroys the plans and claims that the engineer is mad...
Régine was married to Léon. She is currently engaged to Daniel, but still has feelings for Maurice. Young Georgette would like to find me a sister at any price, but her friend Magali would only commit herself for the right reason. Ferdinand is Léon's diligent valet. They all meet up at a winter sports resort. During a wild night, we witness the figures of a most successful quadrille.
Léontine, an old baroness, opposes her granddaughter's wedding for moral reasons. But Adolphe, her first husband reminds her that her own conduct in the past was far from irreproachable. Didn't she cheat on him ? And after her divorce from him and her remarriage with a baron, didn't she do the same thing to her second husband? Léontine then realizes she is in no position to lecture her granddaughter, all the more as she loves her fiancé truly.
A time lord of Valois must go to war. He learns by a prophecy that his honor risks being affected. He entrusts his wife to Maxime de Falindor who, despite the temptation, will know how to restore her wife and honor intact.
Following a trivial road accident, Ariane, an international adventuress, falls in love with Bernard Fleuret, a young artist-painter with diseased lungs. Being pursued by the police, she chooses to hide in the sanatorium where the young man is treated. Ariane proves so smitten by love that she finally changes her ways: she decides to let herself be arrested, sure as she is she will be reunited with her loved one later on.
Dora Nelson, a famous actress, leaves both her husband Philippe de Moreuil and the role she was playing in a movie directed by Nivert, to follow her lover Santini in Italy. But she soon realizes that Santini deceives her with a girl named Elsa. In vexation she decides to return to her husband and to her career. Unfortunately for her, Suzanne Verdier, a little working girl, has in the meantime replaced her not only in the film she had left unfinished but in her husband's heart as well. Dora eventually understands she must step aside.
Alexandre Dumas' romantic novel Lady of the Camelias (more popularly known as Camille) was filmed twice in 1953, first in Argentina, then in France. The Argentine film was heavily modernized, while the French version returns to Dumas' 19th-century milieu. Micheline Presle is excellent as Marguerite, the gorgeous courtesan who flits from man to man until she finds true love in the form of the much-younger Armand (Rolande Alexandre). Though he is willing to marry her despite her past, she is persuaded to forsake him, lest his reputation be ruined. The story then wends its way towards its famous tragic finale, as the consumptive Marguerite is permitted a few brief moments of happiness before her flame is permanently extinguished. Advertised as the seventh version of the Dumas classic, La Dame aux Camelias was certainly not the last.
