Pierre Granier-Deferre Movies

An eight-year old boy learns about love and betrayal in this French drama set in rural France during WW II. The boy, Francois, has moved from Paris to a quiet chateau with his parents who want to escape the stress of the war. In a nearby town, his father's mistress works as a tutor. Soon his father allows a refugee family of Polish Jews to move into the basement. They have a young daughter, and Francois has a terrible crush upon her and refuses to stay safely away from her. Real trouble begins when a Nazi commander and his unit also move into the house, totally unaware of the refugees living below them. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A wealthy woman owns an exclusive private boarding school off the coast of England, where young men are taught in French and English, becoming completely fluent. In general, the school is exactly what it purports to be, but the owner selects some of her young scholarship students for special educational opportunities. In short, she carefully prepares them for initiation into sexuality, which generally pleases them as much as it does her. This summer, one of the scholarship students stays behind and, with the collusion of the school's skeleton staff, begins his extracurricular education with the dissolute headmistress. However, this year, the boy she has chosen has some philosophical qualms which must be addressed even if it endangers her life, and his. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Louise (Elizabeth Bourgine) is a young woman working at a publishing house who develops an unusual affection for submitted manuscript. She breaks up with Serge (Philippe Leotard), the printer who loves her. Louise tells the heartbroken Serge she has fallen in love with the author whom she has never met or even seen. She travels to New York to hunt down the elusive author and ends up in a remote farmhouse in Vermont, where she is greeted by Norma (Anna Massey), the mother of the elusive author. The two women wait for his return in this psychological drama that later becomes a thriller. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

This drama, spiced with sexual innuendo, is directed by Pierre Granier-Deferre, and features Jeanne Kern (Elizabeth Bourgine) as a pretty, somewhat repressed schoolteacher who suffers a smear campaign at work. Someone has been sending her director (Michael Aumont) letters accusing her of lewd and immoral conduct. Matters take a turn for the worse when a photograph of an orgy is sent to all the faculty with one face cut out; presumably, the face is hers. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this plodding drama about a man searching for his friend's wronged lover, there is neither high action nor high suspense to keep -- or even reach -- a quick-paced storyline. A shallow womanizer (Jean Rochefort) plays the trumpet in an orchestra conducted by his steady and stable friend (Philippe Noiret). One day a woman bursts into the womanizer's dressing room and tries to shoot him down for what he did to her sister. As he goes into hiding for his own safety, he asks the orchestra leader to find out who he wronged, and try to help him correct the problem. The rest of the film concerns that search, and its resolution. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Louis (Gerard Lanvin), an advertising executive in a Paris department store, is not the world's most ambitious man, but he has a good marriage and is content with his job -- until his world is turned upside-down by a new, manipulative, controlling manager (Michel Piccoli) who slowly starts to dominate his life. Once given privileged entry into the inner circle of the boss' confidantes, Louis does everything so as not to lose his advantaged position: he works overtime, he fawns, he fetches, his house is at the manager's disposal. His wife (Nathalie Baye), who sees right through the arrogant manager, is getting fed up with her husband's behavior but is not able to make him aware of the extent of his own personality changes. In a pique of anger, she leaves him -- and it looks as though Louis cannot "unlearn" his lesson, especially when the manager disappears as mysteriously as he came. Michel Piccoli won the "Best Actor" award at the 1982 Berlin Film Festival for his role in this film. The film itself also won the Louis Delluc award for the "Best French Film" of 1981. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Social classes and different cultures collide as three disparate men try to court a wealthy young woman (Romy Schneider) in this French drama. One of them, an impoverished aristocrat marries her for her money. Though he is terribly cynical, he does, in some strange way, love her. She is also loved by a super-straight-arrow industrialist. The third lover is a fugitive Greek communist who has been trying to escape Johannes Metaxas' secret police. He and the protagonist are having an affair. Soon after the woman bears him a daughter, the communist is killed. WW II erupts and the woman vanishes. Years pass and the daughter grows up. She heads for Greece to learn more about her parents. There the woman's husband and the capitalist meet again and discuss their shared past. The cinematography of this sweeping romance, based on a novel by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, is particularly beautiful. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This unusual film contains some dark elements of comedy as it tells the tale of an ex-wife who is suddenly visited by her estranged ex-husband. Though she is a loving woman, she does crave revenge. The ex-hubby wants to buy her country house, which she received in the divorce settlement. Instead he finds himself locked in a cage in the cellar. She professes her abiding love, despite everything. He tells her that he left because she was too possessive. The crazy woman gets her due when, after letting the house fill up with gas, she accidentally blows herself up when the postman bearing her alimony check rings her doorbell. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This French drama shows what happens to the folks at home when someone who has been gone for a long time returns. Ange (Yves Montand) has been to America, but an uneasy feeling brings him back to his native island of Corsica. There he discovers his father has been killed, his mother is deathly ill, and his sweetheart has married his stay-at-home brother. Alas, his troubles are not over yet, as his return worries a pair of unscrupulous real-estate developers. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Simone Signoret plays the title role in this dark melodrama from writer/director Pierre Granier-Deferre. The Widow Couderc is based on a novel by Georges Simenon. Here Signoret (who also starred in Le Chat, an earlier Granier-Deferre adaptation of a Simenon novel) plays a bitterly independent middle-aged widow; she is a farmer who takes in a handsome young drifter, Jean (Alain Delon), who turns out to be recently released from prison. Jean does odd jobs for the woman, who lives with her elderly father-in-law, Henri (Jean Tissier), who pretends to be deaf when it suits him, and surreptitiously has an intimate relationship with Couderc. It's Henri's house, and when Jean moves in, it gives the widow's resentful sister-in-law, Françoise (Monique Chaumette), the excuse she's looking for to get Henri to leave the house so she can sell it. The widow and Jean have a modest dream of using an incubator to raise chicks and make a decent living, but their plans are further complicated when Françoise's promiscuous teenaged daughter, Félicie (Ottavia Piccolo, who would go on to star opposite Delon again in 1974's Zorro) comes around with her infant son. Félicie clearly has eyes for Jean, and to the consternation of the widow, who holds his fate in her hands, Jean has trouble resisting the younger woman's charms. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

A grandfather (Jean Gabin) kills a gangster who comes looking for his grandson at the family farm. The boy was involved in hiding heroin for the mob, but the grandfather finds the dope before the gang can retrieve it. He buries the dead goon in the back yard and drives his car into the stream. Soon other members of the gang come to the farm to search for the hidden drugs. The heroic grandfather systematically eliminates the criminals as he acts as judge, jury and executioner in his one man war on drugs and organized crime. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

In this charming drama, a department store clerk takes his wife and kids on a Parisian vacation. One day he is out sightseeing by himself when he encounters a fashion model and offers to give her a guided tour. As they amble about, the romantic city casts its spell and the model falls in love with her guide (who has been pretending to be an artist). Finally things come to a passionate head, and the fellow must decide between a fling and his family. He chooses the latter. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this comedy drama, Salaivin (Maurice Biraud) is a man who lives with his mother (Mona Dol) while holding down a job as a forgettable clerk. When his boss fires him on a whim, Salavin can't find another position and wallows in self pity. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide