Jean Dréville

1940: Taking over French Cinema

Paris, 1940. German occupation forces create a new film production company, Continental, and put Alfred Greven – producer, cinephile, and opportunistic businessman – in charge. During the occupation, under Joseph Goebbels’s orders, Greven hires the best artists and technicians of French cinema to produce successful, highly entertaining films, which are also strategically devoid of propaganda. Simultaneously, he takes advantage of the confiscation of Jewish property to purchase film theaters, studios and laboratories, in order to control the whole production line. His goal: to create a European Hollywood. Among the thirty feature films thus produced under the auspices of Continental, several are, to this day, considered classics of French cinema.

Cinématon XVI

Reel 16 of Gérard Courant's on-going Cinematon series.

The Suspects

Commissaire Perrache, the chief of the D.S.T., the French domestic intelligence service, tries to neutralize a group of terrorists named the Partisans de la Métropole. He sends one of his best agents, inspector Louis Vignon, incidentally the husband of his charming secretary Lucette, on the trail of an illegal transmitter. But Vignon gets kidnapped by the gang and held captive on a boat off the shores of Monaco...

Intermediate Landing in Paris

Michèle, an employee at the airport, is in love with American pilot Eddie Miller who regularly flies the route from New York to Paris, but problems arise when he is transferred to the Tokyo route. Meanwhile Michèle's uncle Albert who works in the freight department sets out to tackle a drug trafficking outfit.