Jean Rigaux

"René la Canne" was the second collaboration between Francis Girod and Ennio Morricone, coming after "Le Trio Infernal" (1974) and before "La Banquière" (1980). His film is an adaptation of a story by Roger Borniche about the gangster René Girier and relates the fantastic adventures of a flamboyant mobster (René/Gérard Depardieu) and a maverick police inspector (Fernand la Sournoise/Michel Piccoli), through the 1940s.

Marseilles, 1919. Georges Sarret is a distinguished and respected lawyer, recently honoured for his services in the First World War. He takes as his lover Philomène Schmidt, a young German woman, who has just lost her job and home. To enable Philomène to remain in France, Georges finds her a husband – who dies conveniently of natural causes a month after the wedding. Georges repeats the trick with Philomène's sister, Catherine – marrying her off to an old man who dies suddenly so that the scheming trio can profit from his life insurance. When an accomplice in the scheme, Marcel Chambon, threatens to blackmail them, Georges and his two lovers have no option but to kill him and his mistress...

In the absence of his wife, a clarinet player is induced by a friend to meet a call girl, but arrived after a crime. Perceived by some people leaving the scene of the crime covered by his raincoat, he became the only suspect for the police. His only hope is to discover the murderer before is name is mentionned publicly, specially in front of his wife.

Jojo’s ambition is to become a gangster, but to be admitted into a gang he has to prove himself by committing a daring act. To that end, he kills someone in broad daylight, not knowing that his victim is an actor who is playing a scene in a film directed by a cranky film-maker (Darry Cowl). The murder is caught on film, leading Commissaire Bernard (Michel Simon) to think that the killer will be easy to find. Sure enough, Bernard soon makes his arrest, a clown from a circus, but then he faces an almost insurmountable problem. The clown has an identical twin, who is also a clown with the same circus. Both men claim to be innocent…

Claude, who temporarily replaces his father at the head of a department store, falls in love at first sight with a pretty female customer. He finds out that she is named Solange and that she is the goddaughter of Professor Hauteclerc, who runs a private psychiatric hospital. To come closer to the girl of his dreams, Claude has a crazy idea: he pretends to be mad so as to be placed in Hauteclerc's institution.

Ambitious Emma Eckhert successfully makes her way into a world previously reserved for men: that of high finance. She quickly becomes popular with small savers, but leads a scandalous life that will cost her.

A debate on the definition of the word laughter, organized by Madame de Saint-Jules and two academicians, illustrated by film extracts, turns into a huge battle of cream pies.

Madeleine Lebeau, a woman who charges for her easy virtue, has a plan that has some of her customers paying more than others; she tells them she is pregnant and, to avoid complications, the men pay her money and don't hang around for the birth. Yves Furet, a shiftless gambler, who not only encourages her in her business ventures but is also her fiancée, shares the fruit of her non-labor. She latches onto a wealthy widower, Henri Vilbert, who throws her a curve-ball when, after she tells him she is pregnant, he is overjoyed as he has fallen in love with her and is looking forward to becoming a father. She plays along for a while, but becomes ashamed when she sees how Vilbert is devoting his whole life to a child that she isn't carrying. She fakes a miscarriage and his kindness makes her feel guilty and she confesses, but he doesn't believe her. So she tries another plan.

Marie, a young bourgeois and Jean, a cargo sailor have an affair, she becomes pregnant but he has to go back to the sea. Marie leaves for Paris where she meets Pierre and marries him. War breaks out, Jean and Pierre will befriend each other on the front.

Antoine Fournier, a language teacher at a secondary school in Lille, was disgraced by four young men he had caught stealing money from a charity collection. Dismissed from the teaching profession, Fournier found a job as a porter in a Monte Carlo palace through his wartime friend Ansaldi. A few years later, when he became the first concierge, the "man with the golden keys", chance brought him into the presence of the young men, married but as Machiavellian as ever. He won't take revenge on them, but their baser instincts will.

Catherine's technique to sell her clocks is to blackmail illegitimate couples such as Jacques and Gisèle. However when Gisèle's husband Pierre walks in on them, Catherine pretends to be Jacques's lover to save the day. Jacques then gets caught up in her schemes when the next couple she deals with turn out to be jewel thieves who kidnap them.

Documentary short subject preserved by the Academy Film Archive, from the Marshall Plan Collection, in 2003.

The struggles of a small business owner come to light in this film by director André Cayatte. The proprietor of a fabric shop, M. Baudu faces stiff competition when a department store moves in across the street, the first of its kind in 1860s Paris. On top of the stresses associated with the rival retailer, Baudu’s niece and two nephews take up residence with him after recently being orphaned. The niece, Denise Baudu, sees the writing on the wall for her uncle’s business so she takes a job as a shop girl with his competitor and despite her success the decision does not register well with the family.

Jean-François Robignac, a teacher, arrives at a provincial college to teach literature to ninth-graders. He quickly wins over the children with his youthful way with words. But his parents want to have him expelled when they learn that Jean-François uses slang words to rejuvenate writers' texts.

During the Directory, a handful of royalists tried to get the Dauphin Louis XVII to escape from the Temple.

It's a sailors' story; they often sail away and when they return, the first thing they do is searching girls in the harbor. One of them -Jean- is shy and he does not know how to go with women. One day, he meets Yvonne and falls in love with her. But, alas, she prefers his good friend René. Another suitor, Pierre, owns the "À la Belle frégate" a café where Yvonne works as a waitress. Madam(e )Juliette, pretends she helps Yvonne and tries to make her an "entraineuse"(hostess) for less-than -handsome guests. But the girl knows better and will choose one of her suitors.

An opera singer is stricken with amnesia and, on the evening of a premiere (in his stage costume which is that of a tramp), he goes to wander with real tramps.

An unconsummated marriage to fool the father who wants his heir to be wed.

The director of a private institution is the father of seven charming young girls. He has money worries. A rich bachelor, still young, a few years ago advanced him a large sum of money. He makes frequent visits to his debtor; the poor father, as mediocre a psychologist as he is a poor businessman, hammers himself in his head, not guessing that the visitor is reluctant to make his choice between the seven sisters.