Raymond Souplex Movies

In this South Sea island romance, a professor, his daughter and his assistant are shipwrecked upon an island when their scientific expedition goes awry. After a decade there the professor dies and the two young people decide to become "husband and wife." The jealous husband worries that he will lose his bride if they go back to the real world. When a ship is at long last sighted on the horizon he "forgets" to light the signal fire. The ship, filled with smugglers, moors offshore anyway. The smugglers find the couple and decide to kill the man and keep the woman for themselves. The husband, desperate to save his wife, leads the crooks to a large cache of pearls. The greedy smugglers begin fighting amongst themselves and they all die. Later the captain, learning of an impending typhoon, comes ashore to find his crew. He finds the bodies, but the husband has disappeared. He tells the woman that he was probably killed and she goes with him to the boat. As they are leaving, she sees him standing on a cliff. Without hesitation, the woman dives overboard to join her man. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Sacha Guitry's Si Versailles M'Etait Conte (If Versailles Were Told to Me) is best known by its American title Royal Affairs in Versailles. In addtion to writing and directed the film, Guitry reserves for himself the plum role of Louis XIV. Concentrating on the palace of Versailles over a period of 300 years, the storyline concentrates on the various amorous and political intrigues of three French kings. The plot manages to wend its way through the French revolution, coming to a halt in "the present". The star-studded supporting cast includes Jean Marais as Louis XV, Claudette Colbert as Mme. Montespan, Micheline Presle as Mme. Pompadour, and, best of all, Orson Welles as a gouty Ben Franklin. Most currently available prints of Si Versailles M'Etait Conte are severely edited, and fail to do justice to the rich Eastmancolor hues of the original version. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Le Vrai Coupable (The Real Guilty) is a laid-back social drama with plenty of surprises. The main character, a young woman, is dead from the outset, the victim of a botched abortion. Detectives Mario (Philipe Lemaire) and Georges (Clement Thierry) politely shuffle through the clues to find out who was responsible for the girl's grisly fate. In so doing, they save the decedent's impressionable cousin from suffering the same denouement. The film's abortion angle prevented Le Vrai Coupable from attaining prime American bookings; in 1951, the subject was still taboo so far as the Motion Picture Code was concerned. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The vivacious Suzy Delair, whose leading men ranged from France's Bernard Blier to Hollywood's Laurel and Hardy, stars in Lady Paname. Delair plays Caprice, a popular Parisian music-hall performer of the early 1900s. Caprice falls in love with a struggling young composer (Henri Guisol), leading to no end of misunderstandings and reconciliations. Louis Jouvet steals the show as an off-the-wall photographer whose "harmless" eccentricities spark the film's many subplots. Lady Paname represented the only directorial effort of actor/journalist/screenwriter Henri Jeanson. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Produced in 1950, the French Three Sinners was adapted by Charles Plisnier from his own novel Meurtres. The film was billed as the dramatic debut of comic-actor Fernandel, and though it really wasn't, he acquits himself nicely in a rare serious assignment. The topic is euthanasia: Noel Annequin's (Fernandel) dying wife begs her husband to put her out of her misery. He does so, then confesses his crime to his three brothers, all pillars of the community. Pursuing their own selfish agendae, the brothers cart their sibling off to a lunatic asylum. Only Noel's niece Martine (Jeanne Moreau) remains loyal, and it is Martine who sets the wheels in motion for a happier ending than the audience has been conditioned to expect. Incidentally, the title is ironic: as the plot unfolds, the viewer realizes that Noel's hypocritical brothers are the real sinners of the piece. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Mr. Peek-a-Boo may seem like a puerile title, but it is a lot more graspable to non-French audiences than the original Garou Garou Le Passe Muraille. Bourvil stars as a minor bureaucrat who finds himself the reluctant recipient of magical powers. He is actually able to walk through solid walls, which should be no surprise to those who read the novel on which the film is based, Marcel Ayme's The Man Who Walked Through Walls (truth in advertising!) He resists his friends' suggestions that he utilize his power to commit undetectable thefts, but changes his mind when he meets reluctant thief Joan Greenwood. The special effects by Henry Harris and Paul Raibaud are fairly elementary, but good for a few laughs as Bourvil constantly makes monkeys of the gendarmes. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Virtually plotless, Surprises Radio is little more than a nonstop parade of specialty numbers, performed by some of France's top radio stars. The film was clearly designed to allow the rural radio fans a rare opportunity to see their favorites "in the flesh." In this respect, the film is a valuable record of a form of entertainment that has long since passed from the scene. Otherwise, Surprises Radio is no better nor worse than such Hollywood airwave extravaganzas as Radio City Revels and Radio Stars on Parade. And with a running time of 80 minutes, it is surprising that the film's stars weren't given even more opportunity to strut their stuff; as it stands, they all seem to be cut short just as they're warming up. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi