French Costume Drama: Film and TV Resources

A selective listing of both fiction and non-fiction films held by the National Archive and available to view.

The National Archive (National Archive), holds a wealth of titles related to France. Below is a list highlighting just some of those based on specific authors and adaptations of their work, all of which may be viewed for research purposes.

Honoré de Balzac

Balzac (1950)

Director: Jean Vidal

Production Company: Films du Compas

Format & Running time: 16mm, 22.5 mins

Documentary on the life and work of the French novelist Honoré de Balzac, his development as a writer and how the individual novels fit into the scheme of "la comedie humaine". Illustrated with contemporary sketches, paintings and photographs.

Guy de Maupassant

Partie de Campagne (1936)

Director/Adaptation: Jean Renoir

Production Company: Panthéon Productions

Cast: Sylvia Bataille, Georges Saint-Saëns, Jeanne Marken, André Gabriello

Format & Running time: 35mm and VHS, 40 mins

A young woman briefly finds love with a young man while on a family excursion into the country. She is reminded of that past happiness when later revisiting the same place.

Le Rosier de Madame Husson (1950)

Director: Jean Boyer

Production Companies: Films Agiman, Eminente Films

Adaptation: Marcel Pagnol

Cast: Bourvil, Baconnet, Duvaleix

Format & Running time: 35mm, 94 mins

Broadly comic story of a village simpleton who, after an unsuccessful search for a virtuous girl to be crowned Rose Queen, is crowned as the Rose King.

Alexandre Dumas (Père)

Lady Hamilton - Zwischen Schmach Und Liebe (1968)

Director: Christian-Jaque

Production Companies: Rapid-Film (Munich), Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie, Produzioni Europee Associate, Peer J. Oppenheimer Productions

Adaptation: Werner P. Zibaso, Jameson Brewer, Christian-Jaque

Cast: Richard Johnson, Michèle Mercier, John Mills, Nadja Tiller

Format & Running time: 35mm, 96 mins

Dramatisation of the love story between Lady Hamilton and Lord Nelson.

Victor Hugo

Notre Dame de Paris (1911)

Director: Albert Capellani

Production Company: Pathé Frère

Cast: Stacia Napierkowska, Henry Krauss

Format & Running time: 35mm, silent, 23 mins

Adaptation of Hugo's novel 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame'.

Les Misérables (1933)

Director: Raymond Bernard

Production Company: Pathé-Natan

Cast: Harry Baur, Charles Vanel, Florelle

Format & Running time: VHS, 305 mins

In 1815, Jean Valjean is free after 19 years of prison for having stolen a loaf of bread. When he is set free, Monseigneur Bienvenu puts him up in order to help Valjean find goodness despite some small thefts. Seven years later, he becomes Monsieur Madeleine, mayor of a little working village, where he helps everyone, especially the poorest. Still wanted by the police, one day he uses his power to save a man. Police inspector Javert recognises him but some old prison companions believe he is someone else.

Ruy Blas (1948)

Director: Pierre Billon

Production Companies: André Paulvé & Georges Legrand

Adaptation: Jean Cocteau

Format & Running time: 35mm and 16mm, 100 mins

In seventeenth-century Spain, a student poses as the nephew of the police chief and, with the help of his uncle, becomes the queen's lover, but the police chief destroys their happiness.

Les Misérables (1958)

Director: Jean-Paul Le Chanois

Production Companies: Société Nouvelle Pathé-Cinéma, Serena Film

Cast: Jean Gabin, Bernard Blier

Format & Running time: VHS, 217 mins

Story of Jean Valjean, the former galley slave who becomes a merchant. Set during the French Revolution.

Island Portraits: L'Exile Extraordinaire (Series: About Britain ) (1986)

Production Company: Channel TV

Format & Running time: VHS, 26 mins

Television documentary on Victor Hugo's eighteen-year exile in the Channel Islands.

Prosper Mérimée

Carmen (1910)

Production Company: Film d'Art

Cast: Regina Badet, Max Dearly

Format & Running time: 35mm, 11 mins

Carmen (1926)

Director/Adaptation: Jacques Feyder

Production Companies: Sequana Films, Films Albatros

Cast: Raquel Meller, Louis Lerch, Gaston Modot

Format & Running time: 35mm, 97 mins

La Carrozza D'Oro (1952)

Director: Jean Renoir

Production Companies: Panaria Film, Hoche Productions, Delphinus

Adaptation: Jean Renoir, Jack Kirkland, Renzo Avanzo, Giulio Macchi

Cast: Anna Mangani, Odoardo Spadaro, Nadia Fiorelli

Format & Running time: 35mm, 102 mins

The amorous complications caused by the arrival in a small Spanish governed South American community of a troupe of Italian actors and their fiery female star.

Carmen (1984)

Director: Francesco Rosi

Production Companies: Société Nouvelle des Etablissements, Production Marcel Dassault, Opera Film Produzione

Adaptation: Francesco Rosi, Tonino Guerra

Cast: Julia Migenes-Johnson, Placido Domingo, Ruggero Raimondi

Format & Running time: VHS, 146.5 mins

Film adaptation of Georges Bizet's opera of the Mérimée story.

Molière

Molière (1956)

Directors: Norbert Tildian, Elvire de Chessin

Production Companies: Cither Productions, Triangle Films

Format & Running time: 35mm and 16mm, 23 mins

Documentary presenting the various phases of Moliere's life: his middle class origins and upper class education, his first experience as a writer and actor, and the formation of his own company. It also looks at his satirical comedies, the hostile response they received from the clergy and the authorities that lead to their banning, his bankruptcy and imprisonment, and his later works produced upon his release.

Marcel Proust

Un Amour de Swann (1983)

Director: Volker Schlöndorff

Production Companies: Films du Losange (Paris), Société Nouvelle des Etablissements, France 3, Société Française de Production de Cinéma, Bioskop-Film, Munich

Adaptation: Volker Schlöndorff, Peter Brook, Jean-Claude Carrière, Marie Hélène Estienne

Cast: Jeremy Irons, Ornella Muti, Alain Delon, Fanny Ardant

Format & Running time: VHS, 107 mins

In late nineteenth-century Paris, Charles Swann recalls his previous encounters with the beautiful demimondaine Odette de Crécy.

Marcel Proust's "A La Recherche du Temps Perdu" (Series: The Modern World - Ten Great Writers ) (1988)

Director: Nigel Wattis

Production Company: LWT

Format & Running time: VHS, 59.5 mins

Television documentary exploring Proust's central themes of time, memory and the creative impulse, with dramatised extracts of the novel and commentary from Professor Michel Butor and Terence Kilmartin.

Unpeeled: Proust - Remembrance of Tastes Past (Series: Without Walls) 1995)

Director: Stephen Lennhoff

Production Company: Rapido

Format & Running time: VHS, 25 mins

Television documentary examination of Proust's fascination with sex and food, with a look at the psychosexual history evoked in 'Remembrance of Things Past'.

Emile Zola

Gervaise (1956)

Director: René Clément

Production Companies: Silver Films (Paris), Agnès Delahaie Productions, Compagnie Industrielle et Commerciale Cinématographe

Adaptation: Jean Aurenche, Pierre Bost

Cast: Maria Schell, François Périer, Suzy Delair

Format & Running time: 35mm, 115 mins

A study of the life and hard times of a lower-class woman under the Second French Empire.

Compiled by John Oliver, May 2006