Movies by Michel Serrault
The Down-in-the-Hole Gang
Here we find a group of misfits who've given up on humanity and have decided to dwell below the pavement. The group has its own hierarchy, of course, and soon the conditions that drove them underground begin to manifest themselves without the influences of the Outside World.
The Dance
The Dance is a 1962 French comedy film directed by Norbert Carbonnaux and starring Jean-Pierre Cassel, Françoise Dorléac and Arletty. The film is based on the French comic strip 13 rue de l'Espoir.
Artemisia
The story of Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1653), one of the first well-known female painters, including her youth, when she was guided and protected by her father, the painter Orazio Gentileschi.
Malevil
In southern France, in a quiet little town, the mayor, who also owns a castle with some cattle, is in the wine cellar with some other people: the pharmacist, the veterinary, and some of his employees. As they are drinking wine, they hear a terrible noise and the heat's getting higher and higher. They don't realize what's happening: when they come out of the cellar, they realize that everything has burned, and all the buildings are destroyed...
Les baratineurs
A precious work of art from the Italian Renaissance is stolen and passes through many hands before ending up in the shed of the farmhouse of Mr. and Mrs. Dujardin, fishmongers, who are inaugurating their luxury fish shop that very day. But the antique dealers, the free-riders and the bargain-hunters are there. They are jealously careful not to pass on the fruit of their clever investigations to their rivals, for all of them, after a picturesque treasure hunt, know that the Dujardin family own the famous Duranti altarpiece. But where have the...
The American Beauty
Marcel, a simple-minded factory worker, is tricked into buying a high-priced American convertable car by a widow determined not to let it fall into the hands of her late husband's secretary/secret lover. Once in pocession of the car, Marcel only encounters one bad luck episode after another with the excessive gasoline consumtion, his wife trying to sell it to make ammends meet, getting into traffic jams, accidently riding into a car wash with the top down, and more.
The Libertine
French philosopher Denis Diderot produces the first encyclopedia while indulging in 18th-century decadence.
Get Out Your Handkerchiefs
Solange is seriously depressed, and her kindhearted husband, Raoul, makes it his mission to cure her doldrums. After many failed attempts to cheer her up, Raoul hits upon a possible solution: find his wife a lover. Unfortunately, his choice, Stéphane, proves to be just as ineffectual in restoring her flagging spirits. In the end, the gorgeous Solange finds her own, highly problematic tonic to her troubles in the form of a 13-year-old boy.
Merci Zaza - La folle histoire de la Cage aux Folles
A look back at "La Cage aux Folles", which ran non-stop for five years, from February 1973, on the stage of the Théâtre du Palais Royal in Paris. At a time when homosexuality was considered a crime by the law, Poiret and Serrault achieved great success in boulevard theater. Their success continued on the silver screen, with three Oscar nominations and a Broadway musical. Combining never-before-seen archives from the play, extracts from the film, confessions by Poiret and Serrault, and interviews with witnesses, this is the story of a wild epic.
Love Comedy
According to the book Journal Particulier de Paul Léautaud, the love story that was born between him and Marie D., whom he met at the Mercure de France in 1922, on the occasion of an article she wrote to appear.
The Madman of Lab Four
This talkative and unevenly paced feature finds Fou (Jean Lefebvre) the inventor of a gas that makes the users fall in love. He is chased by his boss, the police, and spies, who seek to secure the secret recipe for their own selfish purposes. A shadowy American underworld figure tries to intimidate the inventor. A half-hearted attempt at comedy tries to go along with the double dealing and trickery of the thin plot of the film.
On purge bébé
Mr. Follavoine plans to supply the French army with chamber pots. In preparation for this lucrative contract, he invites a doctor from the Ministry of War. The business dinner takes a different turn when Mme Follavoine appears, obsessed by their son Toto's constipation.
Pour avoir Adrienne
La Cage aux Folles
Two gay men living in St. Tropez have their lives turned upside down when the son of one of the men announces he is getting married. They try to conceal their lifestyle and their ownership of the transvestite club downstairs when the fiancée and her parents come for dinner.
The Inquisitor
Martinaud, an illustrious notary suspected of being the perpetrator of two horrendous crimes, voluntarily agrees to be questioned by Inspector Gallien on New Year's Eve. What initially is a routine procedure, soon becomes a harsh interrogation that seems to confirm the initial suspicions.
Diabolique
The cruel and abusive headmaster of a boarding school, Michel Delassalle, is murdered by an unlikely duo -- his meek wife and the mistress he brazenly flaunts. The women become increasingly unhinged by a series of odd occurrences after Delassalle's corpse mysteriously disappears.
The Enigmatic Charlotte Rampling
Screen icon Charlotte Rampling has fascinated the world of cinema, fashion and photography with her mysterious and almost inaccessible beauty. A major figure in genre and auteur films, she is unclassifiable: between presence and absence, shyness and audacity, she's always hypnotic, magnetic and fascinating. From her film debut in the mid-1960s in England, to her unconventional career path, through the tragic loss suicide of her older sister that will irremediably mark her acting, this film is a dive into the existential quest of a complex ac...
Bonsoir
Having first lost his wife then his job as a tweed tailor, Alex Ponttin has devised a novel way to keep himself in touch with society. He admits himself into people's homes, by pretending to be a relative or an official, and persuading his victims to give him a night's free board: He finds at first a lunch at the horrible couple Dumont, where a thief follows him for a robbery. Alex spent an evening in front of TV at Marie, mother of seven children. He runs from Marie to find an evening and a new bed at the home of charming but shy lesbian Ca...
The Other One's Mug
Martial Perrin is the president of a right-wing political party which is gearing itself up for a forthcoming election. When he learns that a notorious criminal named Kraus has escaped from prison, Perrin panics and goes into hiding. His deputy, Constant, hires Perrin’s cousin, Gilbert, an actor who is a perfect double of Perrin, to replace him. What Gilbert does no know is that the killer Kraus is bumping off the people who were implicated in the affair for which he was arrested, and that Perrin is next on his list.
Under Your Hat
An illegal gambling den where players can lose millions... and the owners make their fortune.