When several women are found mutilated and murdered, the Paris police are baffled as to who the killer may be. All evidence points to Dupin, but soon it becomes apparent that it is someone (or something) stronger and deadlier than a human.

1938, France, Paris, at the Superior Conservatory of Dramatic Art ("Conservatoire Supérieur d'Art Dramatique"). The first-year entrance exams are in full swing. Many applicants, few accepted. Isabelle (Janine Darcey) is one of the few chosen. She joins former students from the second and third years, including François (Claude Dauphin) and Cécilia (Odette Joyeux). They attend the drama class run by Professor Lambertin (Louis Jouvet). The young people, passionate and eager to become comedians, clash in tumultuous love affairs, because by dint of acting, they imagine that life is a farce. François, for example, is in love with Isabelle, who also loves him, but is pursued by Cecilia, his former mistress...
"Put art in your life and life in your art!"

Afin de voir la femme qu'il aime, un millionnaire achète un magasin de chaussures. C'est alors qu'il tombe amoureux d'une des vendeuses.

A war correspondent who was stationed in Paris during WW II married a French girl who was murdered by the Nazis. After the war he returns to to try to find his son, whom he lost during a bombing raid but has been told is living in an orphanage in Paris.

Italy 1973. Giuseppe Tritoni (Ugo Tognazzi) is an ultra-right-wing congressman that doesn't agree anymore with his fascist party policy. He contacts many Italian Army officers and built a net of relationship in order to organize a Coup d'Etat (Golpe). Something goes wrong and the Interior Minister (Home Secretary) Mr. Li Masi (Lino Pugliesi) got the all information about the attempted Golpe. So the Minister organizes a counter-Golpe. Tritoni desperately, to save his project, kidnaps the Italian Republic President (Claude Dauphin) that immediately dies for heartache. Now Minister Mr. Li Masi is free to lay down the law to the rest of the country, realizing basically the actual Golpe! Tritoni surrenders and will spend rest of his time trying to sell his ideas about managing Golpe in Africa!

The whole intrigue is centered around carte-blanche documents kept in a vault. Whoever fills in the blank becomes the owner of a revue. Big money is involved. The nephew of the owner of the vault is trying to cheat his uncle and have his name in the documents. Everything is even more complicated because the manager of the bank has a finger in the pie, too. Who but a humble bank-teller (Pierre Richard) will ruin the scheme?

Feuilleton en six épisodes de 55 minutes qui brosse avec authenticité le portrait de Voltaire, et retrace la vie du philosophe, fertile en incidents littéraires, politiques et mondains de toute sorte.

1947 film by Nicole Védrès

1948 film by Alain Resnais