Francois Truffaut directed this simple tale of revenge and adultery which features an exceptional musical score by Georges Delerue. The story concerns a love affair between successful literary magazine editor Pierre Lachenay (Jean Desailly) and alluring airline stewardess, Nicole Chomette (Francoise Dorleac). They meet on a flight to Lisbon, where Pierre is scheduled to deliver a lecture. When he returns to Paris, they continue their affair, but find it is difficult to set up their clandestine trysts, so Pierre arranges a lecture trip to Reims, where they can be together. In Reims however, Pierre finds it difficult to keep the affair a secret from his lecture sponsors. Upon his return to Paris, his wife Franca (Nelly Benedetti), suspicious her husband is having an affair, quarrels with Pierre, who leaves her and asks Nicole to marry him.

With: Jean Desailly, Françoise Dorléac, Nelly Benedetti, Daniel Ceccaldi, Laurence Badie, Philippe Dumat, Paule Emanuele, Sabine Haudepin.

Trailer for the movie La peau douce:

Director François Truffaut’s first feature film, THE 400 BLOWS, is a landmark in French cinema. Antoine Doinel is a 13-year-old boy who can’t seem to do anything right. His parents yell at him and then bribe him for his love and his promises to work harder in school. Meanwhile, his schoolteacher is out to get him and blames Antoine for everything–turning him into the class clown. As a result, Antoine runs away from school and his difficult family, living on the streets of Paris and committing petty crimes. While his life on the street is tough, it’s much better than dealing with his preoccupied parents and his accusatory teacher. Nonetheless, things only go downhill for Antoine, descending to a simultaneously painful and beautiful conclusion.

With: Jean-Pierre Léaud, Claire Maurier, Albert Rémy.

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Adapted from a novel by Henri-Pierre Roché, Jules et Jim tells the story of two aspiring writers who form a close friendship set in the bohemian Paris of 1912. Jules is a shy, philosophical Austrian, while Jim is a debonair Frenchman, confident and successful with women. Both fall for the beautiful, capricious Catherine, but Jules is the one she chooses to marry. After the Great War – in which Jules and Jim fight on opposite sides – Jim visits his two friends and their young daughter in the Rhine Valley, but the marriage is not what it seems, and Jim soon finds himself embroiled in a complex, turbulent ménage à trois. Catherine yearns for free and passionate love, devoid of jealousy, lies and hypocrisy. As her lovers acknowledge, she is ‘a vision for all men, not a woman for one.

With: Jeanne Moreau, Oskar Werner, Henri Serre.

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Discharged from the army, Antoine Doinel reunited with his girlfriend, Christine Darbon and begins the first of a number of jobs proving his incompetence – a night watchman at a hotel. Following his firing from this job he becomes a private detective. When hired to investigate whether the employees of a shoe-shop hate the owner, he ends up lusting after the owner’s wife…

With: Jean-Pierre Léaud, Delphine Seyrig, Claude Jade.

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Describes the work accomplished by a French doctor, at the beginning of last century, who rehabilitated a “wolf-boy”, abandoned by his parents in the forest of Auvergne at the time of the Revolution. Music: Concerto for Mandolin & flute by Vivaldi.

With: Jean-Pierre Cargol, François Truffaut, Françoise Seigner.

Known to English-speaking audiences as Day for Night, La nuit americaine was director Francois Truffaut’s loving and humorous tribute to the communal insanity of making a movie. The film details the making of a family drama called ‘Meet Pamela’ about the tragedy that follows when a young French man introduces his parents to his new British wife. Truffaut gently satirizes his own films with ‘Meet Pamela’s overwrought storyline, but the real focus is on the chaos behind the scenes. One of the central actresses is continually drunk due to family problems, while the other is prone to emotional instability, and the male lead (Truffaut regular Jean-Pierre Leaud) starts to act erratically when his intermittent romance with the fickle script girl begins to fail. In addition to all this personal drama, the film is besieged by technical problems, from difficult tracking shots to stubborn animal actors. The inspiration for future satires of movie-making from Living in Oblivion to Irma Vep, La nuit americaine was considered slight by some critics in comparison to earlier Truffaut masterworks, but it went on to win the 1973 Oscar for Best Foreign Film.

With: Jacqueline Bisset, Valentina Cortese, Dani.

Bertrand Morane, a provincial bachelor in his early forties is killed in a car accident. Women of all shapes and description flock to his funeral. Some nurse tender memories and some are cynical as they recall that he was only truly happy watching or making love to women.

With: Charles Denner, Brigitte Fossey, Nelly Borgeaud.

Truffaut, whose Day For Night explored the world of filmmaking, now turns to the stage in this story of a small theatre company during the German occupation of France. Marion Steiner (Catherine Deneuve), the theatre’s owner, is desperately trying to keep both the troupe and Lucas (Heinz Bennet), her Jewish husband, alive. To do this, she’s staging a new play, which must be successful if she is to maintain the theatre. Not only is this an artistic imperative–the building also serves as a refuge for Lucas–but just as the actors begin their rehearsals, an anti-Semitic journalist ensconces himself in the theatre, creating an atmosphere of fear and insecurity. Will he discover Lucas’s hideaway…or the truth about the political affiliations of Bernard (Gerard Depardieu), the group’s lead actor?

With: Gerard Depardieu, Catherine Deneuve, Jean Poiret, Heinz Bennent, Andrea Ferreol.

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