Marguerite Moreno Movies

Released in the US as The Chips are Down, Jean Delannoy's Les Jeux sont Faits represented the first work written directly for the screen by Jean-Paul Sartre. Not surprisingly, the film is drenched with existentialist philosophy, but overall it works best as a romantic tragedy. The story takes place in an unnamed dictatorship, resistance fighter Pierre (Marcello Pagliero) is killed in a street confrontation. Almost simultaneously, Eve (Micheline Presle), the wife of the dictator, dies of poison administered by her unfaithful husband. Pierre and Eve rematerialize on a dismal little street outside of Heaven's waiting room, where the businesslike admissions clerk (Marguerite Moreno) informs them that they might have become lovers had they met while still alive--and that it is possible to briefly return them to Earth to find out if their romance could have been consummated. Desperately, Eve and Pierre agree to be restored to life, hoping not only to fall in love but also to alter the events leading up to their deaths. Alas, and inevitably, nothing works out as planned. Though Sartre's traditional defeatism is prevalent throughout Les Jeux Sont Faits, what lingers longest in the memory is the brilliant performance by Micheline Presle and the (literally) haunting musical score by Georges Auric. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Christian-Jacque's sole directorial effort for 1946 was Le Revenant, better known to English-speaking audiences as A Lover's Return (though the title literally translates as The Ghost). Jean-Jacques Sauvage (Louis Jouvet) plays a ballet impresario who entices wealthy young Francois (Francois Perier) to leave home and join his ballet company. Accustomed to playing with other people's lives, Jouvet also seduces and abandons beautiful Genevieve (Gaby Morlay), his former lover, who resides in Francois' hometown. French ballet artist Ludmilla Tcherina is prominently featured in the dance sequences. Two years later, Tcherina was "officially" discovered for films in Powell and Pressburger's The Red Shoes. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This is just a casual observation, but it's highly possible that more film adaptations of the works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky were made in France than in Russia. In 1946 there appeared a faithful (if by necessity truncated) French version of the Russian novelist's The Idiot. Gerard Philipe plays the title character, Russian prince Myshkin, who returns to St. Petersburg after a stay in a Swiss mental hospital. The Prince is not literally a mental midget; he is considered an idiot because, as an honest and upright person, he cannot keep pace with the evil in the world. He busies himself with the petty problems of his aristocratic friends, which drive him back into the recesses of insanity. Edwige Feuillere costars as Nastasia, the woman of loose morals who turns out to be the only person who truly cares about Myshkin's welfare, while Lucien Coedel plays the nominal villain of the piece, an iconoclastic flour merchant named Rogozhin, whose passion for Nastasia culminates in tragedy. L'Idiot was remade in Japan by Akira Kurosawa in 1951, and in Russia in 1959. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Sacha Guitry starred in, and pseudonymously directed, the French romantic melodrama My Last Mistress. Guitry plays sculptor Francoise Bressoles, who falls madly in love with his model Catherine (portrayed by Guitry's real-life wive Genevieve). When his eyesight fails him, Bressoles begins to feel unworthy of Catherine, so he tells her to get out of his life. Love conquers all, but it takes ten reels to do so. Filmed in 1943 as Donne-moi Tes Yeux, My Last Mistress was not released in the U.S. until long after WWII had ended. ~ 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

La Dame de Pique is the first talkie version of the frequently filmed Alexander Pushkin parable The Queen of Spades. Pierre Blanchar stars as Hermann, an officer in the Russian army whose chronic gambling brings him in contact with a wealthy old countess (Marguerite Moreno) known as "La Dame de Pique." Fascinated by the countess' incredible luck at the gaming tables, Hermann is determined to learn her secret. With the help of the old woman's niece (Madeleine Ozeray), Hermann gains access to the Countess's boudoir and tries to romance the secret out of her. When this fails, he produces a gun and demands that she tell all -- whereupon the Countess falls dead from a heart attack. From this point on, Hermann's own doom is sealed. The most famous version of the Pushkin original was filmed 12 years later, with Anton Walbrook as the foolhardy protagonist and Edith Evans as the enigmatic Queen of Spades. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi