Jean-Loup Dabadie

A talk show presented by Michel Drucker

Le Grand Échiquier is a French variety television program created and presented by Jacques Chancel. It aired at 8:30 pm on the first channel of the ORTF from January 12, 1972 to July 12, 1972, then on the second color channel of the ORTF from September 1972 to December 1974, and finally on Antenne 2 from January 1975 to December 21, 1989. The program returned to France 2 on December 20, 2018 and is hosted by Anne-Sophie Lapix.

Young sociologist Stanislas Previne is writing a thesis on criminal women, so he visits Camille Bliss in prison for an interview. Accused of murdering her husband and her lover, Camille recounts her life and love affairs.

Thanks to a series of unpublished interviews, recorded shortly before his death, director Claude Sautet gives us a fascinating lesson in cinema. Through his thirteen films, he tells about his career and his work as a director.

The life and the films , not excluding the reference to Domage qu elle soit une putain, of Romy Scheiner recreated grace words of people who knows her in different circumstances.

Star at 17 years with the series of Sissi, Romy Schneider leaves Austria and glory for the love of Alain Delon. From Luchino Visconti to Otto Preminger, through Zulawski and Costa Gravas, she turned with the greatest. The directors interview those who knew her, who loved her, go back to the filming locations, make archive images speak for themselves... and try to detect the part of mystery that Romy Schneider conceals for ever.

A couple of comedians attempt (they never agree) to tell the story of how they met and their picturesque careers in the arts. Guy recounts with dark humor the circumstances of his first, unhappy marriage, his family dramas, his early days as an extra... Sophie describes her professional and sentimental adventures with a friend, Manon, in a no less hard-hitting style. Following a trip to Italy, the two young women end up in a center for "single mothers", whose atmosphere is more reminiscent of a barracks. A few years later, Sophie's son Balthazar attends his mother's wedding to Guy and takes part in the couple's whimsical life.

With his popular culture, prolific imagination, and verbal alchemy, Michel Audiard revolutionized cinema in the 1950s and 1960s. Alongside his mentor and friend Jean Gabin, his writing partner Albert Simonin, and his favorite actors Bernard Blier, Lino Ventura, and Michel Serrault, we find his verve and innate sense of repartee, which alone reflect the spirit of the French people and language. From elegance to cheekiness, cynicism to tenderness, he made words speak like no one else. Between the expressions he stole from bar counters to refine them and his encyclopedic knowledge of French culture, he created a unique style and ranks alongside Prévert and Jeanson as one of the greatest dialogue writers in French cinema.