With such a name, of course we expect Madelen on the ground of nostalgia.
And the INA (National Audiovisual Institute) unlimited streaming platform will not disappoint those looking for wasted time and the stuffed animals of yesteryear.
But, rich in candies, nuggets and curiosities, it also feeds curiosity.
For those who want to explore post-war television, Madelen is a gold mine: 13,000 contents are available in their entirety, including 5,000 in the premier category of fictions and series, which represent 60% of viewings.
We (re) find standards, "Thierry la Fronde" or "Les Brigades du Tigre", a platform hit, the first two of which are available in six seasons.
The third should not be long.
Between 150 and 200 new products are put online each month in this Ali Baba cave that is Madelen, currently at 1 euro for three months.
It's given.
We plunged into it in search of treasures to swallow.
Pierre Richard in
the enchanted forest
To see as a family, “Perrault 70” is a musical comedy-style tale from 1970 in which Jo and Janny - Pierre Richard and Thalie Frugès - enter the enchanted forest and give the answer to the characters of Charles Perrault.
There is the Puss in Boots, the Little Thumb, the Ogre, the Little Red Riding Hood, the Big Bad Wolf or even Bluebeard with which Pierre Richard is fighting ... It was the first time, in Europe, that actors in flesh and blood played with drawn characters.
Pierre Richard sings and dances there.
Collaborator of Aznavour and Gilbert Bécaud, Christian Gaubert signs the music and Pierre-André Dousset, lyricist of Mireille Mathieu among others, is the author of the libretto.
Jean Rochefort and "The Christmas Rabbit"
Adventurous and creative, the television of the 1960s and 1970s gave birth to unusual nuggets.
This is the case with this “Christmas Rabbit”, a wacky fiction from 1967 written by Roland Topor with Jean Rochefort as a Russian taxi driver driving Haydée Politoff on Christmas Eve, or 25 minutes of sweet madness through time and time. 'space during which we meet Tartars dancing “West Side Story” style, Hugues Aufray in prison, Françoise Hardy as executioner or even Serge Gainsbourg playing Russian roulette.
A "Fantômas" signed Chabrol
Dark and tense, far from the overly light versions with Jean Marais and Louis de Funès, "Fantômas" rediscovers darkness with this mini-series directed in 1980 by Claude Chabrol, closer to the universe imagined by its authors Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain.
Commissioner Juve is played by Jacques Dufilho and the genius of evil by the enigmatic Helmut Berger.
Chabrol directs two of the four telefilms - the others are signed by Juan Luis Buñuel, Luis Buñuel's son - including the first in which we meet a very young Fabrice Luchini or even… Jean-Pierre Coffe.
Depardieu, eternal rebel
A year before "Les Valseuses", Gérard Depardieu is already subscribed to the roles of adrift boy.
In "The Unknown", a 1973 TV movie, he swears that society will not have him.
Cheeky, sure of himself and of his destiny, he refuses to comply with the rules and sends his entourage for a walk… The meeting with a mysterious man who offers him a job just as mysterious but well paid seems to comfort him.
It will be the beginning of the end.
To look a little, we find the same Gege in a singular camera in the center of the Earth, "The Cyborg and the Vertical Travel" (1970) or in the new clothes of a hero of Voltaire, in "The Adventures of Zadig ".
He was then 22 years old.
Agnès Varda, it's quite a festival
See and rewatch the films, mostly restored, by Agnès Varda, who died in 2019. First stop at "La Pointe courte" (1955), her first film with a Philippe Noiret minot and Silvia Monfort, shot in the fishermen's quarter de Sète and edited by Alain Resnais, then in Paris with "Cléo de 5 à 7" (1961), the wanderings of a young singer awaiting medical results.
Do not miss "Without roof or law" (1985), with Sandrine Bonnaire in nomadic homelessness, Golden Lion in Venice and four Césars to the key, including that of the best actress.
And “Jacquot de Nantes” (1991), a film full of love and tenderness on Nantes youth and the cinema dreams of Jacques Demy, her husband, who died shortly after the shooting.
The trailer for "Without roof or law"
The beginnings of Belmondo, Galabru, Funès ...
In fiction, we will also (re) discover with pleasure "The New Adventures of Vidocq" with a leaping Claude Brasseur who bursts the screen (1980) or a number of literary adaptations with the appearances of young people at the dawn of fame … In "The Three Musketeers" by Claude Barma (1959), Jean-Paul Belmondo makes his first appearance on the small screen as D'Artagnan, live.
He has already shot "Breathless", which had not yet been released.
We also meet Michel Galabru, who has just left the Comédie-Française.
In 1950, the same Barma signed the very first French television film, “Les Joueurs”, with Louis de Funès on television for the first time.
Another little news, the young Véronique Genest who plays her first major role in the series "Nana" (1981), after Zola.