
Francis Blanche
Actor · 1921 – 1974 · Paris, France
François Jean Blanche, known as "Francis Blanche" (20 July 1921 – 6 July 1974) was a French actor, singer, humorist and author. He was a very popular figure on stage, radio and in films, during the 1950s and 1960s. His two daughters, Barbara & Dominique, are artists with their studios in Eze. Blanche was born in an artistic family, mainly of stage actors—including his father Louis Blanche and his uncle, Emmanuel Blanche, who was a painter—. He completed his secondary schooling at fourteen, the youngest in France to do so at the time. In the 1940s and 1950s, Blanche was part of Robert Dhéry's theatrical company Les Branquignols, with whom he played in the film Ah! Les belles bacchantes, starring Robert Dhéry, Colette Brosset (Dhéry's then-wife), and Louis de Funès; directed by Jean Loubignac in 1954. Blanche teamed up with Pierre Dac to form a comic duo best remembered for Le Sâr Rabindranath Duval, a sketch about a phony and nonsensical Indian clairvoyant and guru (1957). They also created a popular and equally nonsensical radiophonic series, loosely based on a highly improbable espionage and conspiration plot, Malheur aux barbus, which was broadcast on Paris Inter in 213 episodes from 1951 to 1952. The same plot and characters were revived on Europe 1 in a series called Signé Furax, enjoying no less than 1,034 daily episodes between 1956 and 1960. Both broadcasts were phenomenal audience successes in the pre-television era. Blanche was also renowned for broadcasting phone pranks, in which he entertained listeners by making the most improbable situations sound plausible. He wrote poems, and the lyrics of 673 songs. On stage, he acted in Tartuffe and Néron and, in 1955, Chevalier du Ciel, an operetta by Luis Mariano at the Gaîté-Lyrique theatre. Blanche also enjoyed a successful cinematographic career, both as an actor and scriptwriter. He appeared as a hard-headed German colonel ("Obersturmführer Schulz") opposite Brigitte Bardot in Babette s'en va-t-en guerre (1959). He was one of the favourite actors of French filmmaker Georges Lautner, and played Maître Folace (a shady solicitor counselling a colourful gangster mob) in Les Tontons flingueurs (1963). Blanche also appeared in Boris Vassilief's Les Barbouzes (1964). He delighted in parodying classical music, adapting famous works such as Schubert's "Die Forelle" (The Trout) into a crazy and slightly risqué piece about a 16-year-old romantic girl obsessed with Schubert's song to the point of giving birth to a live trout while performing it on her piano. Similarly, he turned Beethoven's 5th Symphony into a lengthy and quite repetitive musical glorification of the clothes peg and its fictitious inventor, Jérémie-Victor Opdebec. Blanche died at the age of 52, from a heart attack with a background of untreated Type 1 diabetes. He is buried in Èze cemetery. Source: Article "Francis Blanche" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Movies23
Movie7.3DramaRomanceBeautiful young housewife Séverine Serizy cannot reconcile her masochistic fantasies with her everyday life alongside dutiful husband Pierre. When her lovestruck friend Henri mentions a secretive high-class brothel run by Madame Anais, Séverine begins to work there during the day under the name Belle de Jour. But when one of her clients grows possessive, she must try to go back to her normal life.
Belle de jour
1967 · 1K votes
Movie6.3AdventureAristocrat Guillaume de Saint Preux leads a double life as a masked bandit known as the Black Tulip. The Black Tulip only robs rich aristocrats, so the local peasants regard him as a hero. Baron La Mouche is convinced Guillaume is the Tulip. During a robbery, he scars the Tulip's face, and hopes to use this to expose Guillaume, but Guillaume is one step ahead.
Movie5.6ComedySenator Pupis feels a strong and uncontrollable urge to grab women's bottoms, a habit than can lead to embarrassment, especially if the woman in question is head of another state and the occasion a state visit. In his desperation Pupis turns to the clergy for spiritual and psychological help.
Nonostante le apparenze... e purchè la nazione non lo sappia... all'onorevole piacciono le donne
The Eroticist
1972 · 26 votes
Movie6.9ComedyActionA cold-war spy parody. After the death of an armaments manufacturer, an international group of spies is drawn into a high-stakes battle of wits to obtain the valuable military patents which have been inherited by the lovely widow.
Movie7.7ComedyCrimeAn aging gangster, Fernand Naudin is hoping for a quiet retirement when he suddenly inherits a fortune from an old friend, a former gangster supremo known as the Mexican. If he is ambivalent about his new found wealth, Fernand is positively nonplussed to discover that he has also inherited his benefactor’s daughter, Patricia. Unfortunately, not only does Fernand have to put up with the thoroughly modern Patricia and her nauseating boyfriend, but he also had to contend with the Mexican’s trigger-happy former employees, who are determined to make a claim.
Movie5.2ComedyA small-town policeman is informed that "naked women" are dancing in a revue at a local variety theater. Being the guardian of public morals that he is, he decides to stroll on down there and check it out for himself.
Movie5.0ComedyA 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 they hidden it themselves?
Les baratineurs
1965 · 3 votes
Movie6.5ComedyRomanceA few stories about marriage and its problems. Antoine is about to marry Gisèle. His friend Julien, an established bachelor, desperately tries to convince him not to do it, recounting his own painful experiences.
Movie5.6ComedyWarBeautiful housekeeper Babette travels to England after the Nazis invade France. There, British intelligence devise a plan for Babette to sneak back home, where she could use her feminine charm on key Nazi officer Schulz, gleaning valuable information for England. However, Babette, although willing and spirited, is naïve and untrained, making her less than ideal for matters of national security.
Movie4.9ComedyRomanceThe seven stages in the life of the modern Frenchwomen are disclosed by seven directors in a witty way: 1 - Childhood, 2 - Adolescence, 3 - Virginity, 4 - Marriage, 5 - Adultery, 6 - Divorce, 7 - The Single Woman.
Movie5.7ComedyA confused pair of airport luggage carriers get involved in the disappearance of some suitcases.
Les Gorilles
1964 · 6 votes
Movie5.4CrimeComedyFive swindle stories, taking place in five international cities: Tokyo, Japan ("Fumiko's Five Benefactors" by Hiromichi Horikawa); Amsterdam, The Netherlands ("A River of Diamonds" by Roman Polanski); Naples, Italy ("The Road Map" by Ugo Gregoretti); Paris, France ("The Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower" by Claude Chabrol); and Marrakesh, Morocco ("The Confidence Man" by Jean-Luc Godard). Godard's segment was not included in the original French cinema release, and Polanski's segment was not included on the 2016 home disc release.
Movie5.0ComedyDramaA collection of sketches that tells the story of prostitution through the ages.
Movie6.8Rose Chaperon is asked by her confectioner mother Mathilde to bring jewels to her sick grandmother, Madame de Mergrand. But Hugues, the latter's brother, is prepared to do anything to get his hands on the loot. To this end he hires a villainous young man, Jean-Louis nicknamed Loup, to do the job. Will Loup engulf and devour Little "Rose "Riding Hood?
Movie5.6ComedyA light French comedy of 5 segments.
Movie4.9ComedyColinot is a young, happy man, until the day three highway robbers abduct his fiancée. The search leads him to meet so many young, lovely women – that when he finally encounters his fiancée, he's no longer sure he loves her.
L'Histoire très bonne et très joyeuse de Colinot Trousse-Chemise
The Edifying and Joyous Story of Colinot
1973 · 17 votes
Movie7.0ComedyEdouard and Félix work in a real estate agency. One day, they are threatened with dismissal if they don't manage to sell a very isolated house to an elderly, silver and somewhat unusual Englishwoman. In the house, they discover a corpse. The visit is spent dragging the corpse from room to room, cupboard to chest, so as not to frighten the otherwise impressed buyer. But the corpse disappears. He has to be found before the deed can be signed. The two salesmen become detectives, tracking down the dead man's many female acquaintances. All the seducer's conquests are sifted through, to find the one who left her jewels at the scene of the crime.
Movie5.4ComedyCrimeJockey Jack has a bill open with a gangster just released from jail. He somehow manages to parry the gangster's knife attack backstage at a theatre and the latter ends up dead being put into a double bass case. A day later the gangster mysteriously has disappeared, but it turns out that he was carrying a bet ticket for a horse race now worth over a million. A turbulent run for the money begins.
Movie5.6ComedyThe old Valmorin died 200 years ago. The notary tells the family about the inheritance: the one who is terminally ill will receive the money. They all try their luck with getting ill before the other so one family member pretends to be deaf, another pretends to have a terrible back ache and so on...
Movie6.6ComedyGeorges Lachaunaye is a member of an impoverished aristocratic family which needs money to live but of course doesn't want to work for it. He therefore has to think of something drastic in order for the family to survive. And then it comes to him: he'll rob the collection boxes in churches.
Movie5.3AdventureThe classic story from the early days of Rome where there are no women. Romulus, the founder of Rome, finds women to be wives from Sabina where there are a lot of women. The Sabine men, of course, attack Rome to get their wives and daughters back.
Movie5.7ComedyAnnie is a middle-age wife, still sexy and pampered by her husband, Phillippe, who is the owner and general manager of a dynamic company. Under the deluge of sexy Swedish movies, sexy advertising on the streets, sexy intimate clothing in ladies' shops, and even talks about sex and marital infidelity with her mother and female friends, Annie starts feeling left aside by her husband, and trying to attract in a number of ways - and failing. It's not the all-purpose secretary at the office that is keeping him late, it's a tax expert that, asking the most innocent questions, is finding out how Philippe can manage a company without profits, and still manage a home, may be two... with high quality levels.
Erotissimo
1969 · 19 votes
Movie5.4DramaCrimeIn the newspaper he has just founded, journalist Dolannes exposes all the wheeling and dealing and scandals that go on in his town.
Series6
TV6.0RealityMidi trente
1972 · 1 votes
- TV6.0Talk Show
Samedi soir
1971 · 1 votes
TV8.0Talk ShowDiscorama
1959 · 1 votes
TV8.7DocumentaryFamilyCinépanorama
1956 · 3 votes
TV8.0DocumentaryÀ bout portant
1968 · 1 votes
TV7.0ComedyLe Bonheur conjugal
1965 · 1 votes