

Les Cent Livres des Hommes (ORTF, 1969-1973) was a series of literary programs created by Claude Santelli and Françoise Verny, and produced notably by Santelli, Jean Archimbaud, and Serge Moati. Planned for one hundred episodes but completed at thirty-nine, the series aimed to introduce great literary works, 'chefs-d’œuvre', to a younger audience through a mix of dramatization, reading, and documentary techniques. It marked a transfer of cultural legitimacy from writers and critics to a generation of television producers, offering a new model of educational and creative literary broadcasting - 'télévision d’auteur'.

An Italian painter, Antonio Berti, pays a visit to Reims to his friend Robert Maurisson, a banker with political views on the town hall, who hides, under an affable air and an irreproachable dignity, a libertine and cynical temperament. Charged by the notable with the restoration of paintings exhibited in the cathedral, the artist calls on Cathy, a young girl from the choir, to serve as his model. The young girl will be found dead a few hours after their interview, near one of Robert's properties.

A fake documentary on the life forms of the Paris Suburbs, viewed through the eyes of homeless, unemployed people the sharks of politics and building societies push to hopeless life.

After a successful bank robbery, Micky hopes to take back his girlfriend Marie who has been taken from him. On the way to Paris he meets Leon, a neurotic dreamer whom he considers an idiot. Leon can hardly understand what Micky is up to but he follows him everywhere and soon falls in love with Marie.

Albert is an eccentric inventor of missiles who comes under fire from his investors when his first prototype explodes. Even his sympathetic mistress has her doubts, as Albert lashes out in a verbal tirade condemning those of little faith in his genius.

A serial-killer frightens Paris by phoning young ladies at night, telling them insults about their lives. Minos, as he calls himself, wants to prevent the world from free women and he targets at first these ones. Commissaire Letellier is given the investigation and he has hard work with the maniac.

Two men and a woman live quite happily together in a romantic liaison. The woman is probably wealthy anyway, so the trio doesn't worry much about money. One day they decide to take a trip in their beat-up car, managing the whole affair in their own special, insouciant manner. They are followed by a suspicious policeman who thinks there's something fishy about this group.

Two men and a woman live quite happily together in a romantic liaison. The woman is probably wealthy anyway, so the trio doesn't worry much about money. One day they decide to take a trip in their beat-up car, managing the whole affair in their own special, insouciant manner. They are followed by a suspicious policeman who thinks there's something fishy about this group.

"This book is a descent into the soul of a child." On November 26th, 1865, Lewis Carroll's 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' was published. In this 1973 broadcast, we discover the genesis of this "masterpiece of the absurd" and delve into the depths of a child's soul, thanks to Jean Gattegno's fascinating analysis. As a bonus, Claude Rich reads us an excerpt from Alice's adventures.

Jean Pierre, a young Parisian salesman, decides to go on vacation by hitchhiking at random. Taken as a jaguar by a rich man, he finds himself invited to his villa in Saint Tropez and discovers a luxurious, idle and decadent universe. A tasty TV movie, written and directed by Michel Polac, with a very young Fabrice Luchini.

Once a successful Hollywood screenwriter, Stan is now a depressive alcoholic who spends most of his time mooching about his house whilst pouring out his troubles to his drinking partner. The only thing that keeps him going is his love for his teenage daughter, Charlotte, but she despises him, believing him to be responsible for the accident in which her mother died.

In this drama, the popular French film star of the '30s and '40s Jean Marais plays Victor, a disgruntled, cranky old man who is forced to come to terms with the fact that he is now the guardian of his mulatto grandson Clem (Serge Ubrette). Victor is shocked to discover his grandson's mixed heritage when he travels to London to pick him up, but resigns himself to the situation. Once at home in France, the brash Clem manages to steal the heart of the most coveted young woman in town, but that only gets him into trouble with her tough-guy boyfriend and his buddies. Meanwhile, Grandpa is trying to come to grips with his own biases as best he can.

Walter is told by his boss, Sara, to deliver an urgent letter to Henri de Corinthe. On the way he finds a beautiful woman he had been eying in a nightclub, lying in the road, bound up. He takes her to a villa to get a doctor, and ends up being locked in a bedroom with her. While she is making love to him, he has visions of surrealistic images from René Magritte's paintings. In the morning, the girl, Marie-Ange, has vanished, the villa looks derelict, and his neck is bleeding. Was it all just a nightmare?

Jean-Pierre Sentier and Daniel Laloux joined forces to write, direct, and act in this zany comedy about two men who were sent to an island by the Ministry of Toil to make Camembert cheese boxes. Unfortunately, the men's papers fell behind a filing cabinet and it is many years before the government realizes they exist. Meanwhile, the men have forged new identities and a good life for themselves as they loyally keep up their production. When the government decides to send a team of experts to handle the situation, the two men prepare to eject these unwanted arrivals at any cost.