
Acting
Mireille Césarine Balin (born Blanche Mireille Césarine Balin; 20 July 1909, in Monte Carlo – 9 November 1968 in Paris) was a French-Italian actress. Balin was born near Monte Carlo. Her father, Charles Balin, was a French newspaper publisher. Her mother was Italian. Her education came at finishing schools. She was a policewoman in Paris until friends urged her to take a screen test. Balin posed for some advertisements in Paris before she began acting in films. Considered one of the finest actresses of French cinema in the 1930s, she was discredited by her fraternization with the Nazis. During Nazi occupation of France, she became romantically involved with an officer of the Wehrmacht and at the end of war she was imprisoned in Fresnes until January 1945. She retired from film in 1947. Balin arrived in Hollywood in 1937 with a staff of servants and with 28 trunks containing "most of her worldly possessions. During the final 10 years of her life she lived in a "charitable home". Balin died in 1968, aged 59.

A neglected young woman comes up against the equivocal feelings of a steward.

Love & Sex under Nazi Occupation questions the burning mystery of intimate heterosexual and homosexual relations in times of war... and shows how being close to death reinforces the yearning for passion, for pleasure, for transgression, for desire as a last burst of freedom, as an ultimate call to life. Nearly two hundred thousands children are thought to be born of the union of French women with German soldiers. Women weren't the Germans' only conquests; indeed, occupied Paris swarms with all kinds of homosexuals—from Genet to Cocteau—who treated with the occupier. The fate of those women who were shaved at the end of the war for fraternizing with Germans is the punishment of a France that lied down and slept with the enemy.

Pépé le Moko, one of France's most wanted criminals, hides out in the Casbah section of Algiers. He knows police will be waiting for him if he tries to leave the city. When Pépé meets Gaby, a gorgeous woman from Paris who is lost in the Casbah, he falls for her.

Having pulled off a robbery with his friend Maurice, Olivier leaves his mistress Lola and hides out in a small village in the country. He finds work, thanks to a young man named Gilbert, who introduces him to his sister, Monique. Once the robbery has been all but forgotten, Olivier intends to head back to Paris, but before he goes, he steals money from his employer. In Paris, Olivier wants to say a proper goodbye to Lola, but she is being blackmailed by Jérôme, an antique dealer who has recognized a necklace stolen by Olivier. Before returning to Monique, Olivier calls on Jérôme to recover the necklace.

Mario Esposito, who sings in a Neapolitan restaurant, is in love with Assunta, the niece of Teresa, the owner of the place. He shares his apartment with Michel, his best friend. This one has fallen under the spell of Lolita, a gorgeous adventuress he met at the cathedral where he officiates as the organist. But things go awry as, while Michel intercedes with Aunt Teresa for Assunta's hand in his favor, Mario in turn falls in love with Lolita. On the very day of his wedding with Assunta, Mario runs away with Lolita, thus betraying both his love and his friend. But it does not take long before the young singer realizes the big mistake he has made.

An intelligent young worker, enterprising but boastful, repeats to all the winds that, if he were the boss, we would see what we would see. One of the main shareholders of the factory takes him at his word for twenty-four hours.
The story of Madame Leroy-Gomez, a wealthy divorcee living in Paris. Together with her servant Antoine she schemes to marry off her unmarried children and fix any issues that arise for those already married.


Thanks to an understanding and sympathetic regimental comrade, a shy young man, very passionate about astronomy, gradually becomes more confident and manages to tell his love to his beloved.

A few colorful characters, with very different social origins and whose destinies are not always glorious, will parade before our eyes, for our greatest pleasure. Turning among characters such as : an alcoholic bum, a rich banker, an eccentric old lady, a working class girl, a poor lover, and a hypocritical bourgeois.
