André Cayatte Movies

In the French legal system, a judge-magistrate conducts criminal investigations. In this story, Suzanne Corbier (Annie Girardot) is one such magistrate who is called upon to determine whether Catherine, who has been having an affair with an Englishman, conspired with him to murder her impotent husband, who condoned the affair. When Suzanne comes to a conclusion, she still must deal with the political demands of her office and her superiors. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

When her 10-year-old daughter is killed by kidnappers, Madeleine (Annie Girardot) goes a little nuts. However, she is fully able to continue investigating what went wrong, despite badgering by news reporters and curious neighbors. Her 19-year-old son has behaved strangely throughout the whole ordeal, and eventually she confronts him. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This French political thriller depicts the world of troubles that descend upon a relatively innocent doctor who decides to serve as a political candidate running against a thoroughly corrupt and devious mayor. In a recent campaign, the mayor and his henchmen were responsible for the murder of a man putting up posters for a rival candidate. Since the mayor is capable of arranging murder, it comes as little surprise that he arranges for the distribution of a forged photograph which makes it appears the doctor's wife was in an orgy. Attempts to clear his family's name and continue with the campaign make the doctor's situation worse. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Olivier (Renaud Verley) is a student rebel who scams a trip to Nepal to look up his big-game-hunting father. Sampling the decadent nightlife of Paris, he attends a party where his fashion-model mother is stripped naked. Olivier then joins a world-hunger relief program to secure transportation to Nepal and falls in with a bunch of drug-addled hippies who pay lip service to the pursuit of spiritual guidance. The group gets a ride with Laureen (Arlene Dahl), a sex-starved American woman who takes advantage of the free-love ethic. Eventually they arrive in Katmandou where Olivier falls for a drugged-out hippie girl he tries to reform. He meets his father but is sorely disappointed when he gets no money from him. Worse yet, his father's sidekick makes a move on the hippie girl when she is in a drug-induced coma. Finding the girl dead, Olivier seeks revenge for the girl's demise. He tracks down the sidekick, but the man's wife is the first to reach the malevolent hunter and kill him. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Dany Carrel is an amnesiac girl who is supposed to be a rich heiress. Her guardian Jeanne (Madeleine Robinson) tries to help her to regain her memory. The mystery unfolds in a series of flashbacks in which the girl finally realized who she is. This psychological mystery is based on the bestselling, virtually unfilmable novel by Sebastien Japrisot. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

The scene is the French Riviera. Based on eyewitness testimony, three identically dressed men are accused of kidnapping and murdering a child, but two of them can possibly be guilty. Is the innocent party Anthony Perkins, an American who has fled to France in the wake of a sex scandal? Is it Italian Renato Salvatori, whose bad reputation with women has preceded him? Or is it Jean-Claude Brialy, a French businessman whose sister uses her sexual wiles to clinch her brother's big business deals? We'll never know...because Two Are Guilty director Andre Cayatte, a longtime critic of the French justice system, contrives to have all three suspects killed by an out-of-control mob. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

With Mirror Has Two Faces (Miroir a Deux Faces), French director Andre Cayatte takes a respite from his usual broadsides against the iniquities of the French judicial system. Michele Morgan stars as a plain, middle-aged woman, miserably unhappy with her go-nowhere existence. She submits to plastic surgery, and as the years are cosmetically removed she vows to alter her life. The first major change is in her relationship with her self-involved schoolmaster husband (Bourvil). Where once he'd taken Morgan for granted, the husband now reacts with lunatic jealousy whenever anyone comes near her. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The title of this French noir drama translates to The Black File. Jean-Marc Bory plays Jacques Arnaud, an idealistic young investigator who comes to work in a small French town. He is soon involved in a mysterious case incriminating a town notable. Arnaud devotes himself to the case but the upshot of this is rather surprising to all concerned, not to mention the audience. Like Cayatte's previous efforts, Le Dossier Noir is based on the proposition that the phrase "French justice" can at times be oxymoronic. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Originally titled Nous Sommes Tout des Assassins, We Are All Murderers was directed by Andre Cayette, a former lawyer who detested France's execution system. Charles Spaak's screenplay makes no attempt to launder the four principal characters (Marcel Mouloudji, Raymond Pellegrin, Antoinine Balpetre, Julien Verdeir): never mind the motivations, these are all hardened murderers. Still, the film condemns the sadistic ritual through which these four men are brought to the guillotine. In France, the policy is to never tell the condemned man when the execution will occur--and then to show up without warning and drag the victim kicking and screaming to his doom, without any opportunity to make peace with himself or his Maker. By the end of this harrowing film, the audience feels as dehumanized as the four "protagonists." We are All Murderers was roundly roasted by the French law enforcement establishment, but it won a special jury prize at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Per its title, Lovers of Verona is an updated adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The film was a joint project of those felicitous collaborators, screenwriter Jacques Prevert and director Andre Cayatte. The star-crossed lovers are portrayed by Serge Reggiani and Anouk Aimee, cast respectively as the poverty-stricken son of a glassblower and the daughter of a disgraced nobleman. While playing bit roles in a stage production of Romeo and Juliet, Angelo (Reggiani) and Georgia (Aimee) are suddenly promoted to the leading parts. Predictably, hero and heroine begin acting out their characters in real life as well as on stage. Not so predictably, their romance is challenged not by modern-day counterparts to the Montagues and the Capulets, but by the lovers' own heightened sensitivities to their social differences. Following the worldwide success of Lovers of Verona (it was released in Italy in 1949, then internationally in 1951), director Andre Cayatte was given what one historian has described as "carte blanche" in the French film industry; put simply, the man could do no wrong. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Roger la Honte was the first entry in a two-part production based on the epic novel by Jules Mary. Lucien Coedel plays the title character, a turn-of-the-century industrialist. Falsely accused of murder, the hero is sentenced to a lengthy prison term, which profoundly alters his personality. The second half of the saga, La Revanche de Roger la Honte, details the protagonist efforts to wreak vengeance on those who wronged him. Both Roger la Honte and its sequel were directed in a quasi-Emile Zola fashion by the always interesting Andre Cayatte. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide