Francis Blanche
François Jean Blanche, known as "Francis Blanche" (20 July 1921 – 6 July 1974) was a French actor, singer, humorist and author. He was a very popular figure on stage, radio and in films, during the 1950s and 1960s. His two daughters, Barbara & Dominique, are artists with their studios in Eze. Blanche was born in an artistic family, mainly of stage actors—including his father Louis Blanche and his uncle, Emmanuel Blanche, who was a painter—. He completed his secondary schooling at fourteen, the youngest in France to do so at the time. In the 1940s and 1950s, Blanche was part of Robert Dhéry's theatrical company Les Branquignols, with whom he played in the film Ah! Les belles bacchantes, starring Robert Dhéry, Colette Brosset (Dhéry's then-wife), and Louis de Funès; directed by Jean Loubignac in 1954. Blanche teamed up with Pierre Dac to form a comic duo best remembered for Le Sâr Rabindranath Duval, a sketch about a phony and nonsensical Indian clairvoyant and guru (1957). They also created a popular and equally nonsensical radiophonic series, loosely based on a highly improbable espionage and conspiration plot, Malheur aux barbus, which was broadcast on Paris Inter in 213 episodes from 1951 to 1952. The same plot and characters were revived on Europe 1 in a series called Signé Furax, enjoying no less than 1,034 daily episodes between 1956 and 1960. Both broadcasts were phenomenal audience successes in the pre-television era. Blanche was also renowned for broadcasting phone pranks, in which he entertained listeners by making the most improbable situations sound plausible. He wrote poems, and the lyrics of 673 songs. On stage, he acted in Tartuffe and Néron and, in 1955, Chevalier du Ciel, an operetta by Luis Mariano at the Gaîté-Lyrique theatre. Blanche also enjoyed a successful cinematographic career, both as an actor and scriptwriter. He appeared as a hard-headed German colonel ("Obersturmführer Schulz") opposite Brigitte Bardot in Babette s'en va-t-en guerre (1959). He was one of the favourite actors of French filmmaker Georges Lautner, and played Maître Folace (a shady solicitor counselling a colourful gangster mob) in Les Tontons flingueurs (1963). Blanche also appeared in Boris Vassilief's Les Barbouzes (1964). He delighted in parodying classical music, adapting famous works such as Schubert's "Die Forelle" (The Trout) into a crazy and slightly risqué piece about a 16-year-old romantic girl obsessed with Schubert's song to the point of giving birth to a live trout while performing it on her piano. Similarly, he turned Beethoven's 5th Symphony into a lengthy and quite repetitive musical glorification of the clothes peg and its fictitious inventor, Jérémie-Victor Opdebec. Blanche died at the age of 52, from a heart attack with a background of untreated Type 1 diabetes. He is buried in Èze cemetery. Source: Article "Francis Blanche" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Belle de Jour
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The Black Tulip
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The Great Spy Chase
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Crooks in Clover
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Operation Gold Ingot
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The Seventh Juror
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Anyone Can Kill Me
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Long Live Henry IV... Long Live Love!
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The Oldest Profession
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Thank Heaven for Small Favors
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Snobs!
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The World's Most Beautiful Swindlers
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Male Hunt
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Under Your Hat
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Babette Goes to War
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Sweet and Sour
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Erotissimo
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Peek-a-boo
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The Great Gadget
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The Stud
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Deux Romains en Gaule
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Trust Me!
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The Big Wash
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The Vendetta
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Les Gorilles
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The Virgins
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Love and the Frenchwoman
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The Green Mare
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Say it with Flowers
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The Big Scare
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Who Stole the Body?
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Rita the Field Marshal
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La Grande Maffia
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Les baratineurs
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Faites donc plaisir aux amis
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Les gros malins
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Les gros bras
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Midnight... Quai de Bercy
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Qu'est-ce qui fait courir les crocodiles ?
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Les livreurs
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Toto in Paris
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Tartarin de Tarascon
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Some Like It... Cold
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The Big Grasshopper
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Romulus and the Sabines
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Chance at Love
as L'adjudant (segment "Chance du guerrier, La")Four sketches revolving around the themes of luck and love.
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The Great Java
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Little Girls and High Finance
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La Polka des menottes
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Hitch-Hike
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The Little Professor
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A Dog, A Mouse and a Sputnik
as uncreditedA French animal lover protects a dog and a mouse wanted by Soviet scientists for their space...
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Ces messieurs de la gâchette
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Par le sang des autres
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Les jambes en l'air
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La Dernière Bourrée à Paris
as Gaston PayracYoung Berthe, deeply moved by a cinema screening of the notoriously sultry Le Dernier Tango à...
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The Hideout
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Match contre la mort
as uncreditedThe Lourmel couple are taking part in the final round of a TV game show: the wife has to answer...
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Les pieds nickelés
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Les enquiquineurs
as Monsieur Achille EloyMonsieur Eloy, his wife and their ten-year-old son, Zizi, are off to their country home for the...
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Scandal Man
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Requiem pour un caïd
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Champagne for Savages
as FrancisA diverse group of friends gather to celebrate a witless woman's birthday in this comedy drama...
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Life is beautiful
as un voisinParis, 1956. Everything is going smoothly for Roger, married to Denise, and Paul, married to...
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The Girl of a Thousand Months
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A Whale That Had a Toothache
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Honoré de Marseille
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I've Had It
as Mr. de ChatiezA Parisian named Cartier living in Quebec City and employee of a major English Canadian...
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Ils ont vingt ans
as Michel BarbarinThe former "J3" who used to be pupils at the Coutances high school are currently students in...
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Le canard en fer blanc
as Le docteur GregoIn South America, airplane pilot François Cartier is searching for treasure for a group of...
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Un merveilleux parfum d'oseille
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The Motorcycle Cops
as His Excellency CuracaguaMarc, a motorcycle brigadier, is engaged to the charming Véronique. But his future...
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Aux frais de la princesse
as uncreditedThe Eloi family, who have just won the "model family" competition, set off for winter sports....
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Easy Come Easy Go
as FélixÉdouard and Félix, two inseparable friends, live off the times and do odd jobs, sharing a tiny...
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I. You. They.
as Darbon, le galeristeLittle did this pretty brunette know when she applied for a babysitting job that her employer...
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The Real Bargain
as uncreditedThe eccentric Comtesse de Saint-Plâs sells a black Citroën DS to car dealer Paul Souflé. He...
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Alice au pays des merveilles
as Le roi de coeurAlice sets off in pursuit of a mysterious white rabbit in a hurry. After a dizzying fall into a...
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OK Patron
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Jaloux comme un tigre
as le chauffeurHenri has a beautiful wife, Sophie. Unfortunately, suffering from an unhealthy jealousy, he...
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Clémentine chérie
as l'importun à la cérémonie des Miss (non crédité)Gaston Bellus, is the director of a textile house, and the research laboratory makes a...
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Good Enough to Eat
as GillesRose Chaperon is asked by her confectioner mother Mathilde to bring jewels to her sick...
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The Sad Sack
as Jean du Bois d'OmbellesThanks to a bit of string-pulling by his aunt, Jean du Bois d'Ombelles, a young recruit who has...
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The Terror with Cross-Eyes
as Commissioner PignaTo gain fame quickly - three actors - Mino, Giacinto and Mirella, stage a fake murder (Mirella...
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The Abominable Man of Customs
as ArnakosTwo rival gangs fight over drug trafficking. An American killer named Timetti Le Muet arrives at...
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The Bear
as ChappuisA mild-mannered zookeeper has to contend with his tyrannical boss and a talking lovesick bear.
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Salut Berthe !
as Le passant à la pipe (uncredited)Adrien Chautard, a major industrialist from Abidjan, has been chosen to replace an expert on the...
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We Like It Cold
as von KrussendorfA farcical account of the happenings in Rome in 1943 when the allied army and the partisans...
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Les 100 vies de Francis Blanche
as Self (archive footage)Comedian, actor, author, director and emblematic figure of the French stage and cinema of the...
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Le bourgeois gentil mec
as SpinosaMonsieur Gentil runs a perfume factory. He is a shy man, bullied by Madame Marthe, the manager,...
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The Sleeping Sentinel
as ConstantIn 1812, Napoleon I set off for the Russian Campaign and planned to spend a night in...
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Les malabars sont au parfum
as IvanovAll sorts of spies are buzzing around Michel, whose cow, Dorothée, produces 200 liters of milk a...
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Frédérica
as Ami de GilbertGilbert, poet and singer, is about to marry Lilette but deep inside himself he is not quite sure...
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Pas de caviar pour tante Olga
as uncreditedRosa, a housekeeper in a NATO office in Paris, steals a micro film for her lover whom she hopes...
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Il furto è l'anima del commercio!?...
as SigfridLibero Sbardelloni, newly married, cannot find work in Rome, so he moves to Naples, where Baron...
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The Indestructible
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Pierre Dac et Francis Blanche : Le Meilleur du Parti d'en Rire
as Lui-même
Accroche-toi, y'a du vent!
as uncreditedA self-taught amateur detective who learned his trade from a book finds himself caught between...
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The Killer is Listening
as SelfApril fools in a studio where a radio host pretends to shoot dead all the performers....till a...
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Le pillole di Ercole
as AugustoA doctor unwittingly drinks an aphrodisiac fluid and thus has relationships with an...
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Long Live the Duke!
as uncreditedA Belgian village is struck by repeated flooding, all this because they lack a new sewer. But...
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