Le Silence Est D'or (1947)

Set in the Paris of the early 1900s, a film director (Maurice Chevalier) is an aging ladies man. When an old chum (Roland Armontel) goes on tour, the director takes his friend's daughter (Marcelle Derrien) under his wing and gives her a job as an actress in his movie. But it isn't long before the older man falls in love with the young girl even though she has fallen in love with a man (Francois Perier) her own age. Written and directed by Rene Clair (I MARRIED A WITCH), this was his first French film in over 12 years after working in Hollywood and England. Clair's romantic farce shows an affection for the early days of making movies (referred to as cinematographs here) but the emphasis is on the romantic triangle. I've never been an admirer of Chevalier's work in his English language movies, he always seemed to overdo the French bit as if playing to an American audiences concept of what a Frenchman is really like. He doesn't have to do that here and he brings a sense of pathos to his aging lothario coming to terms with the loneliness that his "man about town" facade is covering up. With Dany Robin and Robert Pizani.