Germaine Kerjean Movies

The idyllic life of a beautiful gypsy girl is shattered when she runs away from a pre-arranged marriage to a member of her tribe. Away from the safety of her people, she encounters bigotry against her kind. A little girl feels sorry for the missing gypsy beauty and searches for a magic root that can cure the wandering gypsy from her wanderlust and bring her home again. Music, dance, ancient gypsy rituals, and colorful European scenery highlight this feature which takes a decidedly jaundiced view of the racial indignities suffered by the heroine. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

The heroine in L'Eau Vive is the unwilling heir to a fortune. Young Hortense (Pascale Audret) has always known that her family was greedy, but until she inherits her father's hidden millions she has no idea how loathsome her relatives could be. Surrounded on all sides by grubby, outstretched hands, Hortense takes some comfort in the fact that her legacy is still missing. When the money is finally recovered, our heroine does the "right thing" with her windfall, leaving her mercenary family empty-handed. Throughout the film, Hortense's dilemma is likened to a government dam project not far from her home; as the bridge grows in size, so too does Hortense's resolve to rise above the nastiness all around her. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Proibito (Forbidden) is based on Grazia Deledda's Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Mother. Mel Ferrer stars as Don Pablo, a priest who returns to his provincial home in Sardegna. Here he discovers to his dismay that a centuries-old feud between two families is still raging. Don Pablo hopes to bring peace to the community, but his task seems insurmountable. Meanwhile, the priest's childhood friend Agnese (Lea Massari) secretly continues to harbor a stronger affection for Don Pablo than she should. Even those critics who were cool to the stars and plotline of Proibito were bowled over by the Technicolor cinematography of Aldo Tonti. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Rita is a curious crime melodrama with mystical overtones. Facing the guillotine, condemned murderer Sylvain (Clement Duhour) is given the opportunity to undo the damage he's caused. Sylvain is transported back to a few days before the murder. Perhaps he can avoid his previous mistakes and save himself from execution. Ah, but they don't call Fate "cruel" for nothing. Billed over nominal leading man Clement Duhour is the popular Vivien Romance, going through her usual paces as a femme fatale who is literally "to die for." American prints of Rita run an abrupt 71 minutes, suggesting that the film was given a thorough going-over by the censors before it was deemed suitable for stateside consumption. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Originally Goupi Mains Rogues, this was the first new French feature film to be shown in the US since the end of WW2-though "new" was a relative term, inasmuch as the film was completed in 1943. The scene is a remote, rustic inn, managed by a scruffy family of peasants known as the Goupis. Practicing their own special brand of larceny, the Goupis fancy themselves as Runyonesque rogues, going so far as to bestow colorful nicknames upon themselves. The official head of the band is "Red Hands", played by Fernand Ledoux, but even he is answerable to the Goupis' patriarch, a 106-year-old named "The Emperor" (Maurice Schulz). Nearly plotless, Goupi Mains Rogues offers an unforgettable cast of characters and an abundance of authentic Gallic atmosphere. Picked up for American distribution by MGM, the film inexplicably disappeared from view within a few months; director Jacques Becker later claimed that MGM destroyed all the prints so that the film wouldn't compete with the studio's American-made productions, though this hardly seems to be the case. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Le Mystere de Saint-Val stars Fernandel as a mousy insurance-office clerk who dreams of being a great detective. The clerk's uncle, who also happens to be his boss, tries to cure his nephew of his delusions by sending him off on a wild-goose chase. As things turn out, Fernandel gets mixed up in a murder case, culminating in a spooky night in a forbidding old castle. All the standard "scare" jokes are in attendance, with Fernandel grimacing and mugging to his heart's content. Filmed in the late 1930s, this frantic comedy-mystery was released in the U.S. in 1945. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide