Movies: René Clair

Ten strangers are summoned to a remote island and while they are waiting for the mysterious host to appear, a recording levels serious accusations at each of the guests. Soon they start being murdered, one by one. As the survivors try to keep their w...

Henri Faust, retiring after 50 years as a professor in a circa-1700 French university, despairs at the ravages of old age ... whereupon Mephistopheles, agent of Lucifer, appears as a virile, handsome young man and exchanges bodies with him to induce...

A 17th-century witch returns to wreak havoc in the life of a descendant of the Puritan witch hunter who burned her....

The film is a historical drama set during the reign of Elizabeth I (Flora Robson), focusing on the English defeat of the Spanish Armada, whence the title. In 1588, relations between Spain and England are at the breaking point. With the support of Que...

In World War II, American Gates Trimble Pomfret is in London during the Blitz to sell the ancestral family house. The current tenant, Leslie Trimble, tries to dissuade him from selling by telling him the 140-year history of the place and the connecti...

Debt-ridden painter Michel is overcome with joy at discovering that he has just won 1 million florins in the Dutch lottery, but almost immediately, he discovers that his softhearted girlfriend, Béatrice, has given away his jacket containing the winni...

On the day of Fadinard's wedding, his horse eats a lady's hat on a bush at the roadside, while the lady is hidden behind the bush with her lover Lieutenant Tavernier. Because she is married, she cannot return home hatless without being compromised, a...

The works of Marcel Pagnol are a veritable monument of French cultural heritage. Based on previously unseen archive material, film extracts, novels, plays, interviews and letters, the film pays tribute to the major author and popular filmmaker, who m...

In this classic French satire, Louis, a convict, escapes from prison and takes on legitimate work, making his way up in the business world. Eventually becoming the head of a successful factory, Louis opts to modernize his company with mechanical inno...

Two small-time song-and-dance men come up with what they believe is a surefire publicity stunt, guaranteed to keep their names in the public eye--one of them will "disappear" in what looks like a murder, and the other will be convicted of the crime. ...

A young turn-of-the-century newspaper man finds he can get hold of the next day's paper. This brings more problems than fortune, especially as his new girlfriend is part of a phony clairvoyant act....

Donald Glourie shares his crumbling ancestral home with the ghost of his Highland ancestor, Murdoch, who has been condemned to haunt the castle until he avenges a 200-year-old insult from a rival clan. To clear his mounting debts, Donald sells the di...

Emile is a French film producer at the beginning of the century. One of his friends leaves his daughter Lucette in his house, when he is starting a tour through France. Emile falls in love with her. Problems starts when his younger friend Jacques com...

Armand, a boastful womaniser, makes a bet that he can seduce any girl he wants. He soon crosses paths with a beautiful Parisian divorcee, who is nothing like anyone he has ever met before....

A poetic documentary tribute to the famous Eiffel tower, built for the 1889 World Fair and intended to have been destroyed 20 years later. A vocal subset of Parisians (among which, one may surmise, Clair would've been counted) insisted the Tower rema...

A light, comedy romance about a cab driver named Jean and a flower girl named Anna that takes place in Paris during the Bastille day celebration of July 14th....

In the tenement slums of Paris between the world wars, impoverished street singer Albert yearns for beautiful Romanian immigrant Pola. Pola's boyfriend, local hoodlum Fred, grows jealous of Albert's constant attention to his woman and frames the hapl...

Garadoux has beaten his wife. His lawyer Fremissin is young and very shy, and therefore, not very efficient... Two years after, Garadoux is trying to seduce Cecile, but she prefers Fremissin......

"Les quatre vérités" aka "The Four Truths" is a movie anthology that consists of four segments, all loosely parodying fables from the 17th-century French poet Jean de la Fontaine. The US cut usually features only 3 segments....

The Last Billionaire is a 1934 French comedy film directed by René Clair and starring Max Dearly, Marthe Mellot and Renée Saint-Cyr. The film is based on a fictional small European kingdom which is on the verge of going broke. Its French title is Le ...