Known for Acting
With more than 70 films and 160 million cumulative tickets in France, Jean-Paul Belmondo is one of the essential stars of French cinema.
A look at 18th-century France, when the authorities depravity contributed to social oppression, and the uprisings flared up one after another.
Biarritz, 1933. Charm and talent help small-time swindler Serge Alexandre, alias Stavisky, to bribe his way into the centre of French political power. But when his great scam involving millions gets exposed, he brings the government to the verge of collapse and the country to the brink of civil war.
Sophie Dirondel, history teacher at the Saint-Cloison-sur-Ermoise, wins the jackpot of a lottery, a 2CV. The good-natured woman is both happy and slightly upset, as she doe not have her driving-license. But she decides to take driving lessons and although she does not prove very gifted she manages to pass the test. She grasps the opportunity to achieve one of her sweetest dreams and, proudly sitting behind her wheel, heads for the City of Light. Alone in Paris, she gets to know Victor Martini, a smooth operator. The man who, in real fact, is the leader of a gang, has no problem bamboozling the naive woman.
An English governor in India, deceived by his wife, proposes to him either to accuse the lover of embezzlement, or to condemn her to end her days as a prostitute in the rue des Bouches Peintes. She chooses the second solution...
Jacques Montet, a successful crime story writer, has already written a hundred books and would like to call it quits now to devote himself to loftier writing. But his wife, a cold-hearted, money-minded, bossy woman won't allow. All the more as she is the one who supplies Jacques with the plots of his detective stories. When Jacques, yearning for true love, meets young, pretty Muriel, he can't stand the situation any longer. Fortunately - for him - the plot of the 101st detective story imagined by his wife is about a ... perfect crime. He simply has to follow her instructions to ... get rid of her. Everything goes according to plan until Jacques discovers a scary detail: the presence of a mysterious witness on the scene of the crime.
Violeta, an Andalusian gypsy, foretells a lady she will become empress. The lady is Eugenia de Montijo, and when she marries emperor Luis Napoleón of France she takes the young girl with her. The empress'cousin readily makes her his focus of attention, then she discovers a criminal attempt against the empress.
Armand Varescot, a rich and tyrannical old man, is killed by his young and pretty secretary, Caroline, while he was trying to abuse her. To avoid scandal, his granddaughter Marie Varescot convinces Frank, his cousin, to take responsibility for this "accidental" death, he who is in love with Caroline. But Commissioner Legrand, who has designs on Marie, only agrees to close the affair if Marie marries her, and if Frank leaves with Caroline, abandoning his share of the inheritance. The arrangement is accepted and life goes on.
The peasant Adémaï, returning home, gets lost in the forest and knocks down a border post. In his haste to replant it, he installs it upside down.
When he finds a package in the metro, given this period of restrictions, Mr. Truche thinks it may be a good deal, he takes it home but discovers a woman's head inside. A friend of Mr. Truche having just disappeared, the superintendent accuses her of having murdered her and discovers the head buried in his cellar. But the girlfriend, whom Mr. Truche loves platonically, returns from the countryside and at the same time we spot the assassin of the unknown woman.
During the Great War, in Austria, an officer was shot on the orders of his superior von Pennwitz. Out of revenge, his widow becomes a spy in the pay of France, preoccupied with removing the person responsible for her husband's death. In charge of a mission to von Pennwitz, she suddenly finds herself face to face with her husband, who is still alive. It was a ruse of war to deceive the enemy. It is only at the armistice that the couple will be able to live in peace.
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.
