Plot
Hector Loursat, attorney at law, lives with his daughter, Nicole, in a vast and shabby mansion in a provincial town. Their conversation with each other is limited, each somehow holding the other one responsible for the situation: Hector Loursat used to be one of the great attorneys until his wife left him for another man eighteen years ago. He has been drinking ever since, and given up living altogether, intoxicated every night. Hector did not care much about his daughter, who was brought up by Fine, the old woman servant in the house.
One night, gunshots are heard upstairs in the house and Hector spots a shadow running away. Hector goes upstairs with Nicole and finds a dead man lying on an old bed in the attic. The police arrive and investigate. Hector soon finds out his daughter has a kind of secret life with a band of young idle bourgeois from the town; they have regular meetings in the attic.
The police soon determine that the dead man is called Gros Louis, with a criminal record. Nicole and her friends are being interrogated by the police. But how is Gros Louis linked to the group? They find out the young group have set up amongst themselves a sort of pact, a theft competition which started by stealing a ballpoint or a lighter, and was amplified by boredom up to grand theft auto. Thus, they were turned delinquents by ennui. The police also finds out that one of them, Emile, is Nicole's boyfriend. Did he kill Gros Louis because of jealousy? Emile is suspected, and arrested. In jail, Emile asks Hector Loursat to be his attorney. Hector, scenting a miscarriage of justice, agrees to be his defense attorney.
At the trial, the prosecution produces many bona fide witnesses, all bourgeois parents. Hector Loursat does not budge, has no questions to ask the witnesses, doesn't seem to be there altogether, to the point where people, and his daughter among them, wonder, with awe, if he is not still drinking. When finally Hector Loursat stands up and speaks, everyone is bewildered by his speech and strategy. First, he does not want to call any defense witnesses, but instead wants all the prosecution witnesses to come back to the stand, and accuses them all of being responsible for the boredom of the town, responsible for the boredom and nonsense and stupid behavior of their young ones, then singles out the fact that only one girl - his own daughter, Nicole - was in the group. By interrogating each of the young men, he shows that every one of them was in love with her, except, apparently, one, Luska. But Hector Loursat soon proves Luska was the one most in love with Nicole, that he found out Emile was Nicole's boyfriend, and that he killed Gros Louis to have Emile accused, moved aside and framed. At this point, Luska cracks up, confesses, and is arrested. Nicole falls into her father's arms.
Daniel Ceccaldi was a French actor.
À nous la liberté, sometimes written as À nous la liberté!, is a 1931 French musical film directed by René Clair. With a score by Georges Auric, it has more music than any of Clair's other early works. Praised for its use of sound and Academy Award-nominated scenic design, the film has been called Clair's "crowning achievement".
Lacombe, Lucien is a 1974 French war drama film by Louis Malle about a French teenage boy during the German occupation of France in World War II.
Gervaise is a 1956 French film directed by René Clément based on the 1877 novel L'Assommoir by Émile Zola. It depicts a working-class woman in the mid-nineteenth century trying to cope with the descent of her husband into alcoholism.
Marcel André Mouloudji was a French singer and actor who was born in Paris and died in Neuilly-sur-Seine. He sang songs written by Boris Vian and Jacques Prévert.
Madame Favart is an opéra comique, or operetta, in three acts by Jacques Offenbach. The French libretto was written by Alfred Duru and Henri Chivot.
The Sleeping Car Murders is a 1965 French mystery film directed by Costa-Gavras from the novel by Sébastien Japrisot. It stars Yves Montand, Simone Signoret, Michel Piccoli, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Catherine Allégret, Jacques Perrin, Charles Denner and Pascale Roberts. The film was the directorial debut of Costa-Gavras, to be followed later by other, more politically-oriented work.
Le Mesnil-le-Roi is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. It is about 3.5 km (2 mi) from Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
Émile Chautard was a French-American film director, actor, and screenwriter, most active in the silent era. He directed more than 100 films between 1910 and 1924. He also appeared in more than 60 films between 1911 and 1934.
Les Inconnus dans la maison is a novel by Belgian author Georges Simenon. It was first published in 1940 by Gallimard in Paris.
Ni vu, ni connu, also known by its English title Neither Seen, Nor Recognized, is a French comedy film from 1958, directed by Yves Robert and starring Louis de Funès. The film is based on the novel L'Affaire Blaireau by Alphonse Allais. The story had previously been adapted for the screen in 1923 and in 1932.
Lucien-Victor Guirand de Scévola was a French painter. He is known for his pioneering leadership of the Camoufleurs in World War I.
Denise Grey was an Italian-born actress who became a naturalized French citizen.
Stranger on Horseback is a 1955 American Anscocolor Western film directed by Jacques Tourneur and starring Joel McCrea. The screenplay is based on a story by Louis L'Amour. It was filmed in and around Sedona, Arizona.
Mary Marquet was a French stage and film actress.
The Amis des monuments rouennais or Société des amis des monuments rouennais is an association in the French city of Rouen, with the main aim of saving threatened historic buildings there. It was established in 1886 and is now based in the city's Hôtel des sociétés savantes at 190 rue Beauvoisine. In French law it is an 'association loi de 1901'.
Guy Decomble (1910–1964) was a French film and television actor. A character actor he played in a number of supporting parts in postwar cinema. One of his better known roles is as the teacher in The 400 Blows by François Truffaut.
Gas-Oil is a 1955 French crime drama film directed by Gilles Grangier and starring Jean Gabin, Jeanne Moreau, Gaby Basset and Ginette Leclerc. It was shot at the Epinay Studios in Paris and on location at a variety of places. The film's sets were designed by the art director Jacques Colombier. It was one of a number of films portraying tough truck drivers made in the wake of the success of the 1953 film The Wages of Fear. It was the first of many films in which Gabin appeared in written by his fellow Parisian Michel Audiard.
Antoine-Louis Romanet was a French engraver, designer, and miniaturist.
