Fernand Gravey and Jacques Duby star as a pair of slick race track touts in need of some quick cash. Targetting rural rube Jean Richard as a patsy, the two sharpsters con him into putting up his hard-earned cash on a few sure things. Within what seems like seconds, Richard becomes wealthy by using his instincts, while the “clever” Gravey and Duby come a-cropper by playing the odds. If it’s possible for a French film to be Runyonesque, then Courte Tete is that film.

	
Courte tete (Short Head) (1956) -- Norbert Carbonnaux.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1h 28mn
Size: 	1.41 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	716x572 ~> 762x572
Aspect ratio:  	4:3
Frame rate: 	24.000 fps
Bit rate: 	2 100 Kbps
BPP: 	0.214
Audio
#1:  	French 2.0ch AC-3 @ 192 Kbps

https://nitro.download/view/C3788ED4FEADEBA/Courte_tete__(Short_Head)_(1956)_–_Norbert_Carbonnaux.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/631763C9CF7D52D/Courte_tete__(Short_Head)_(1956)_–_Norbert_Carbonnaux.v2.srt

Language(s):French
Subtitles:English, Russian (muxed)

The post Norbert Carbonnaux – Courte tête AKA Slightly Ahead AKA Short Head (1956) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Denis, a poor student in philosophy, works as a night porter in the Paris market of Les Halles in order to pay for his studies. Constantly weary, he falls asleep and dreams of a beautiful girl in white, Irène, with whom he falls in love.

Letterboxd & IMDB reviews
Quote:
★★★ Watched by Alan J. 06 Feb 2018

Jean Cocteau once said that films should be an hour and a half long because that is how long we dream each night. Describing a film as ‘dream like’ is one of the biggest cliches of film criticism, and yet we persist in doing it because in many cases it just seems so true. This is a film in which someone thinks they are dreaming, when in reality they are wide awake. It is silly pretext for some rather unlikely but entertaining business, including some Cocteau like special effects.

Quote:
Belle de Nuit dbdumonteil 11 July 2006

The main problem is the choice of the lead:he is supposed to be a philosophy student and Fernand Gravey was 38 when he made this movie.It is impossible to believe he is a young romantic lead (Jean-Pierre Aumont or Louis Jourdan would have been better in such a part).

All that remains is original,inventive,and it is probably Marcel Lherbier’s best talkie.After his brilliant silent works,his career had its highs (this movie,”le Mystere de la Chambre Jaune”,”le Bonheur”,”l’Affaire du Collier de la Reine”) and its lows (dreadful melodramas such as “l’Enfant de l’Amour”,les Hommes Nouveaux”,”la Porte du Large” or stodgy propaganda films such as “Entente Cordiale”). Ten years before René Clair’s “les Belles de Nuit” ,Lherbier tells a tale of a dreamer :a student who is forced to work in “les Halles” and dreams his life away.It was the Occupation time in France and escapist works were par excellence the prevailing genre(along with “moral'” melodramas such as “le Voile Bleu” ): 1942 also brought Marcel Carné’s “les Visiteurs du Soir” and the following year Delannoy-Cocteau’s “l’Eternel Retour” .You could even call Gremillon’s work “le Ciel est à Vous” an escapist film:a woman who had a dream to fly.

“La Nuit Fantastique” is a movie of its time.Certain of its aspects are dated ,but its best moments are still impressive today.The student meets a woman in his dreams :she will be nothing like he pictured her to be and he can never see her face;in real life,his lover cheats on him with one of his so-called pals.

One night,he “enters ” his dream .The gap between dream and reality is brilliantly rendered:using time warp,masterfully working on the pictures (fuzziness) and on the soundtrack (sometimes the words become incomprehensible),Lherbier builds a sensational dreamlike atmosphere.And by introducing magic and conjurers,he gives his movie a fourth dimension.Melodrama is also present (Who is really Irene?)but it is kept to the minimum.Perhaps the final is a bit disappointing but it might have inspired Jean Cocteau for the last picture of his celebrated “la Belle et la Bête”.Anyway “la Nuit Fantastique” is sometimes close to a fairy tale too ,with a smart use of Tom Thumb;and the scene on the roof recalls Andersen’s “the shepherdess and the sweep” which Grimault/Prevert transferred to the screen as “le Roi et l’Oiseau”

One should also note that Lherbier’s movie was made five years before “the secret life of Walter Mitty” a movie which borrows some ideas from it (making the hero out to be a lunatic ;here,the heroine)

“You can be brave when you know you are dreaming” the hero says.

	
La.nuit.fantastique.1942.576p.BluRay.AC3.x264.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 31 min
Size: 	2.23 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	766x576 
Aspect ratio:  	4:3
Frame rate: 	24.000 fps
Bit rate: 	3 226 kb/s
BPP: 	0.305
Audio
#1:  	French 2.0ch AC-3 @ 256 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/3ED020E986EC27A/La.nuit.fantastique.1942.576p.BluRay.AC3.x264.mkv

Language(s):French
Subtitles:English, French

The post Marcel L’Herbier – La Nuit fantastique AKA The Fantastic Night (1942) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Summary
Garage attendant Louis Stainval is a shy daydreamer with no money. One day, he wins a large sum of money via the national lottery and decides to spice up his life. He prevents a failed artist named Raoul Grandvivier from killing himself and takes him home. Here, Louis meets Raoul’s beautiful daughter Lucie and immediately falls in love. So that he can go on seeing Lucie, Louis pays frequent calls on Raoul, ostensibly to buy his paintings. The paintings are so bad that Louis just throws them into the river Seine. Because he has found someone to buy his work, Raoul begins to believe that he is a serious painter. This misunderstanding will cause a great deal of trouble…

699MB | 1h 16m | 576 x 432 | avi

https://nitro.download/view/822F361F7FF6469/Le_temps_des_oeufs_durs_(1958)_Norbert_Carbonnaux.avi

Language(s):French
Subtitles:None

The post Norbert Carbonnaux – Le temps des oeufs durs (1958) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Plot summary:
Frank, a vagabond, arrives at a service station on a mountain road near to Marseilles. The kindly old owner, Nick, offers him a job which he accepts. Frank is instantly attracted to Nick’s young wife, Cora, and they have a passionate affair. The two lovers plan to kill Nick so that they can profit from his life insurance. Having made Nick’s death look like an accident, they are acquitted of his murder. However, fate has a cruel twist in store…

Le dernier tournant 1939 1080p HDTV.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 27 min
Size: 	2.20 GiB
Video
Codec: 	h264
Resolution: 	1920x1080 
Aspect ratio:  	16:9
Frame rate: 	25.000 fps
Bit rate: 	
BPP: 	
Audio
#1:  	French 2.0ch AAC LC

https://nitro.download/view/A5B9EF5AFF1D1C9/Le_dernier_tournant_1939_1080p_HDTV.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/9E6619E07AAC4A7/Le_dernier_tournant_1939_1080p_HDTV.srt

Language(s):French
Subtitles:English

The post Pierre Chenal – Le Dernier Tournant AKA The Last Turning (1939) first appeared on Cinema of the World.