Gabrielle Fontan Movies

Sois Belle et Tais Toi is more popularly known by its American-release title Be Beautiful but Shut Up. Mylene Demongeot plays a birdbrained young lady who gets mixed up with a gang of juvenile-delinquent smugglers. The crooks use the heroine as their go-between, intending to leave her holding the bag if and when the cops show up. Fortunately, a handsome police inspector (Henri Vidal) catches on to their scheme. One of the screenwriters for Sois Belle et Tais Toi was no less Roger Vadim. When the film was first released, its direction was often erroniously credited to Marc Allegret. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Hi, Doc! was the flippant English-language title bestowed upon the French seriocomedy Bonjour Toubib. That splendid comic actor Noel-Noel stars as a seemingly bumptious physician, regarded as an object of ridicule by his superiors, and not a few of his patients. In true Capraesque fashion, it turns out that the doctor has a lot more on the ball than his so-called brilliant colleagues. A subplot concerns the leading character's son, who has the qualifications but none of the desire to follow in his father's footsteps. Bonjour Toubib was a curiously lightweight choice for the Cannes Film Festival of 1957. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Both controversial and compelling, this is the story of a naive peasant girl who becomes pregnant after being seduced by a shepherd and believes that she is carrying a specially blessed child. ~ Tana Hobart, Rovi

Jean Renoir's A Day in the Country is a short and semisweet romantic vignette based on a story by Guy de Maupassant. A group of family members spend a day away from the city in the French countryside. While the men go off to fish, the mother (Jeanne Marken) has a harmless flirtation with a rural "rake," while the daughter (Sylvia Bataille) has a more serious liaison with a handsome young man (George Saint-Saens). Fourteen years later, the same family vacations at the same spot. The handsome stranger returns, hoping to renew his affair with the daughter; unfortunately, the girl is now married to a dull, insensitive jerk. The two former lovers ponder what might have been, then the family heads back to the city. A Day in the Country currently exists only in a 40-minute version; Renoir had planned to film scenes depicting what happened in the years between the two holidays, but he closed down production due to an acute "creative block." For this reason, although the film was shot in 1936, it wasn't released to theaters until ten years later. For its American distribution, Day in the Country was bundled together with two other short European films -- Joifroi and the controversial The Miracle -- as the portmanteau film The Ways of Love. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Claude Autant-Lara's literally haunting romantic tale Sylvia and the Phantom stars Odette Joyeaux as Sylvia, an imaginative young girl who lives in an old French castle. Fascinated by a portrait of the lover of her deceased grandmother, Sylvia fantasizes about having a romance with the lover's ghost. On Sylvia's 16th birthday, her father decides to amuse the girl by having the "ghost" make an appearance, and to that end engages the services of three men--a valet, a ham actor and a burglar--to impersonate the wraith. Though confused by the fact that the ghost seemingly has three distinct personalities, Sylvia nonetheless falls in love with the burglar, the most handsome of the trio. Disillusioned upon learning of her father's subterfuge, Sylvia is unfortunately unresponsive when the real ghost (poignantly enacted by comedian Jacques Tati) makes a surprise appearance. Unfairly lambasted by American critics as "worthless," Sylvia and the Phantom has since taken its place in cinema history as one of Claude Autant-Lara's most beguiling works. The film was adapted from a play by Alfred Adam. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Filmed in 1943, Autant-Lara's Douce (English title: Love Story) made it to American screens six years later. Overshadowed by his later works, Douce nonetheless has much to offer for the director's legions of devotees. The title character, played by Odette Joyeaux, is a young girl of wealth growing up in her lavish family estate in the late 19th century. Douce is hopelessly in love with the estate's much-older manager Fabien Marani (Roger Pigaut). Her starry-eyed illusions are ripe for shattering, and Douce's insanely jealous governess (Madeline Robinson) is just the person to do this "service." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The great French character Raimu stars in Strangers in the House. He is cast as Loursat, the father of teenager Nicole (Juliette Faber). When Nicole's petty-thief boyfriend (Andre Reybas) is accused of murder, Loursat, a once-great attorney who has taken to drink, cleans up his act and defends the lad in court. Filmed in 1942, Strangers in the House attained an American release in 1949, three years after Raimu's death. Based on a novel by Georges Simenon, the film was remade in 1967 as Cop-Out, with James Mason and in 1992 as L'Inconnu dans la Maison with Jean-Paul Belmondo. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Director Jean Renoir returns to the "people of the soil" of his previous Toni in People of France! (originally La Vie est a nous, or A Life for Us). Using a cast of nonprofessionals, Renoir pontificates on the dehumanization of the capitalist system. The film opens as a group of schoolchildren come across the fact that France is controlled by 200 wealthy families. As the kids put together a scrapbook detailing the lives of these movers and shakers, Renoir cuts away to the emotional damage wrought both intentionally and unintentionally by the insensitivity of the Elite. Not surprisingly, the film concludes with a rally of the French Communist Party. People of France! was in fact financed by the communists, a fact Renoir attributed to his eagerness during this period to work with anyone who espoused an anti-Nazi viewpoint (he also effectively disowned the picture, insisting that while he physically directed it, he really had nothing to do with it creatively). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Victor de Fleury (Rene Lefebvre), a handsome young nobleman, has fallen upon hard times. Victor is hired by wealthy but uneducated industrialist Edgar Flachon (Pierre Brasseur), who is in love with an aristocratic young lady (Alice Ael). Feeling inadequate in his sweetheart's presence, Edgar requests that Victor accompany him to the girl's family's home for a weekend party. No, Victor is not to teach Edgar the proper social graces: His assignment is to behave in such a cloddish manner that Edgar will seem to be a prize catch in comparison. Given this premise, is it any surprise who the girl eventually ends up with? ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi