In this interview, conducted in spring 2021, scholar Nick Rees-Roberts traces the influence of La Piscine on the worlds of film and fashion in the half century since its release.

What was the role of women in Spanish cinema from the 1930s to the present explained through fragments of different films, both fiction and non-fiction. (Followed by “Manda huevos,” 2016.)

Adventures of a group of youngsters set in a provincial French city in the 1950's.

A Paris police detective plays rough with a prostitute and her pimp/lover, whom he wants as an informant.

During the world war two in a French village a teacher and a female pupil have been killed by the Gestapo because of an informer.Now forty years later former pupils , now adults will meet together in a villager to find out who was the pupil who denounced the teacher to the Germans and also to take a decision about it.

Rémi is a man trapped in a deteriorating marriage. When his wife is unexpectedly killed in a car accident, Rémi is left with his stepdaughter, Marion, who chooses to stay with him rather than live with her birth father. After the initial shock passes, Rémi is caught off-guard when Marion begins expressing her attraction to him. Initially repulsed, Marion's mature beauty wears him down as he finally caves to her seductions.

Egyptologist Erica Baron finds more than she bargained for during her long-planned trip to The Land of the Pharoahs - murder, theft, betrayal, love, and a mummy's curse!

A six-part French tv series first broadcast in 1979, each episode of Orient Express focuses on a different tale of a journey on the legendary train; each one is set between the outbreak of the First World War and the outbreak of the Second.

When her father is murdered, a cosmetics heiress becomes the next target of an unknown killer amid the international jet set.

In the middle of the night, deputy Philippe Dubaye wakes up his old friend Xavier Maréchal with disturbing news: he has just killed Serrano, a racketeer with extant political connections. Serrano kept proofs of Dubaye's involvement in corrupt dealings and was poised to use them against the deputy. Xavier readily agrees to cover up for his old pal Philippe, but he soon runs into difficulties. Nobody believes Dubaye's alibi. And everybody -- influential personalities, powerful businessmen, dubious go-betweens and the police -- wants to get hold of the documents that served to blackmail Dubaye; by all possible means...

The three ex-wives of a real estate developer join forces to get revenge on him.

Based on a true story. Madame Claude, a well connected Parisienne with dark past, runs a network of high-class call girls. She sends her girls to any place in the world to satisfy sexual desires of wealthy and powerful men. Claude's manipulations also involve big business and politics. Meanwhile, photographer David Evans is trying to clear his own criminal record by providing the authorities with pictures of Claude's girls with important clients in compromising positions. But powerful men can do anything to keep their secrets...

After his family tries to kill him and he has been pronounced dead, Michel returns from the dead and sets about getting revenge on his family members. He sends each one a voodoo doll, warning of their fate. Wandering over the streets of Paris, Michel is the haunted and hunted, as he himself hunts his villainous kin.

Dad’s new wife, Lalla, is young, very young. Maybe too young. His son Claudio falls in love with her, but there’s something wrong with him. He has a complicated relationship with the memory of his mother, who died in a car accident years ago. The two lovers plan a murder, but not of the same person…

The story is about a man with family problems, try to solve everything with drugs, later his girlfriend died of an overdose ...

15 years ago Paul Jordan was a star in Hollywood musicals. But then he retired from showbiz and married the rich Joan. Now, after being dependent on his wife's money for many years, he's sick of it and wants to work again. A romantic affair with his stepdaughter, Shirley, gives him the guts to ask for a role. His former agent gets him one but it's with a small company in Vienna, Austria. The stress worsens his alcoholism; the tablets he takes to hide the effects lead him to hallucinations. When his wife and girlfriend appear at the same time, he's no longer capable of handling the situation.

A middle-aged couple invites a group of youngsters to their luxury villa to introduce them into the rituals and mystery of love and lust.

A talk show presented by Michel Drucker

The yacht of millionaire Hellmann explodes in the Mediterranean Sea, with him and 8 men crew on board. Insurance agent Lucas investigates at the Cote D'Azur, because there's the suspicion that it could have been suicide. He finds out that Hellmann's villa was monitored, the tapes also contain information about the explosion. He uses them for blackmail.

Alexandre, a young man from a wealthy family, suffers a serious fall. One leg is finally amputated, leaving the other paralyzed. Desperate, the boy tries to come to terms with his new existence. He quickly adopts a cruel attitude towards those closest to him, blackmailing the house gardener and his mother, who has a lover. Obsessed with sex, he is unable to have an affair with a girl and ends up committing suicide.

An important drug lord settled in Marseille is suspected of having ordered the killing of an American agent, but it is impossible to impute him due to his political influences, so the dead agent's boss decides to hire the services of a hitman to kill him.

Rome police headquarters. A new commissioner, promoted by the political team at "night", has to deal with the case of a girl seriously injured at Villa Borghese.

Jean Diserens has a double life: he's a property developer and... drug dealer. He's looking for a new way to sell it. But his superior, Crazy Capo, doesn't see things the same way.

Jeanne lives in Paris and believes she is the reincarnation of Don Juan. She visits a priest and tells him she has killed a man. He comes to her elegant flat - her father has died leaving her rich - and she tells the priest stories about men she has seduced. The seduction is easy, she tells him, it's destruction that takes planning. We watch her with an upright elected official, a wealthy boor, and a folk singer. She describes herself as a spider. Her friend Léporella tries to be Jeanne's conscience. What does Jeanne want?

A discredited police inspector is given a second chance, in the form of a dangerous assignment. Chosen because of his uncanny resemblance to a Lt. Revere, the inspector impersonates him in order to penetrate a group of mercenaries with orders to assassinate its leader.

After returning to Catania after a long period of time, Giuseppe reunites with his old lover, Caterina. Her 15 year-old daughter, Graziella begins to seduce her mother's lover and he soon breaks down and begins an affair with her. As time passes Caterina begins having sneaking suspicions about Giuseppe's & Graziella's relationship.

Oscar is trying to re-establish an affair with Sandra, a disturbed young woman. Having found her husband Fabrizio shot dead and her young son Ricky standing beside him with a gun, Sandra suffered a complete breakdown and now lives in isolation with her protective mother. The latter saved the young boy from recrimination by placing the gun in his father's hand, making it seem like he committed suicide. However, things are not what they seem...

Following a car breakdown, Miss Annie, director of a weight loss center, meets a certain Mr. Kelvo, a car champion. But instead of helping her, he rapes her. She decides to take revenge and follows him.

Marc, is a reporter in a tabloid. At the "Bongo Club", he photographs a young blond woman kissing a black man. This woman is the daughter of Senator Linden, head of the segregationist movement of USA.

An industrial espionage group calls on a retired spy living with his wife and children in Paris.

1830, somewhere in France. Aurore is a young, beautiful and virtuous widow. She meets Raphael, a man of leisure, a debauchee. Raphael is obsessed by the death, and wait for it by chasing women and drinking. He first tries to seduce her, but is impressed by her and gives up. But Aurore felt in love with him, and tries not to look as inacessible. A romantic drama, with dispair, cynism, disgust for life and love.

Didier is an embarrassed lover and husband when his young mistress, whom he had just left, attempts suicide and is adopted by her family while she recovers. The situation becomes very tense when everyone (husband, wife, children and mistress) goes on vacation together. Didier asks his wife for a divorce after succumbing to his mistress again, but that's not the end of the trouble.

Marina and her boyfriend have an argument while on a trip in France. While driving with the car among the cliffs, he starts speeding and the car falls into the sea. Marina can jump out of the car, but her boyfriend seems to be drowned. She gets to know his brother and he falls in love with her. But why does she always feel watched? What reasons are behind her strange behaviour anyway? Did she really murder her boyfriend? But is he dead anyway?

While on a train to Rome, Léon muses about his love life after leaving his wife.

A veteran paratrooper murders his Vietnamese wife when he finds her in the arms of a younger man. Garal (Maurice Ronet) makes it back to the army base where his drunken roommate provides him with an iron clad alibi. Jauran (Michel Bouquet) is the local police inspector who befriends the Garal, unaware he is the killer. The younger man is accused of the woman's murder, but the paratrooper begins to feel overwhelmed with guilt. The longer he remains silent about the crime, the more psychological torture he must endure.

A gay man who is trying to protect his wayward ward runs afoul of criminals.

Clara becomes a secretary who must cater to all the desires of the womanizing writer Jérôme, while he tries to write his memoirs.

Comedy about a self-made woman in Paris contemplating the idea of suicide at first, then murder.

Delphine is a country girl who travels to the big city in search of feminine emancipation and freedom. Attending wild parties and nightclubs, she meet a young rock star.

Set in a magnificent villa near a sun-drenched St. Tropez, lovers Jean-Paul and Marianne are spending a happy, lazy summer holiday. Their only concern is to gratify their mutual passion - until the day when Marianne invites her former lover and his beautiful teenage daughter to spend a few days with them. From the first moment, a certain uneasiness and tension begin to develop between the four, which soon escalates in a dangerous love-game.

Insurance executive Charles suspects his wife Hélène of playing the field, so he has a private detective locate his wife's lover, author Victor Pegala.

A young woman, unsatisfied by her husband, searches for sex in the brothels of a seaside town.

All-American couple who try to bridge the generation gap with their free-spirited son on a trip, frisky business and misunderstandings galore ensue, all funny, vibrant and charming.

Anselmo is a young anthropologist who is tormented by jealousy, and although his wife Camilla does not give reasons, keeps a close eye on her. After consulting a psychiatrist, the doctor says the problem is him and not his wife. So he plots to verify, once and for all, if his suspicions are true. By chance he meets an old friend, Lotario, who seems the ideal person to carry out his plans. What Anselmo does not know is that his friend is a real womanizer who ends seducing his wife.

Charlo and Carla are on their honeymoon. She is three months pregnant. He, furious about his marriage of convenience, recalls the past and ponders on The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch, dear to the Surrealists. While she is bleeding, he spends the night with a beautiful stranger...

The widow of a murdered undercover NATO officer in Greece is the prime suspect in his killing. She finds herself embroiled in a bigger conspiracy about the sabotage of U.S. radar installations while trying to prove her innocence.

A champagne tycoon's partner suspects his partner's gigolo husband of murders he's been framed for.

In June 1944, a young doctor, Chevalier, under the threat of guns, is forced to treat a wounded man in a camp of resistance fighters (maquisards). He recognizes the man, minister of the Third Republic, called Morel by his companions. Carnot, the chief of the maquisards, is suspicious of a doctor who expressly disapproves of the resistance and wants to have him shot as soon as he has treated Morel. Philippe, who is second in command, intervenes in favor of the Chevalier. Meanwhile, peasants denounce the maquisards to the Nazis and the camp is surrounded by the Germans. The camp is saved thanks to Philippe who takes command of the group. He decides to leave the shelter and they begin the long march through the Cévennes to rally maquisard Napoleon in the Vercors...

It is based on upon the memoir Mémoires d'un agent secret de la France libre et La Ligne de démarcation by Gilbert Renault under his pseudonym Colonel Rémy. A small village in the Jura is split by the river Loue which creates the line of demarcation between Nazi occupied France and freedom. A French officer, Pierre, is released by the Nazi soldiers to find his chateau converted into a German command centre. Whilst he is obliged to co-operate with the enemy, his wife Mary supports the resistance movement and is willing to risk her life for it. The Nazis step up their activity against the resistance, insisting that any who attempt to cross the line of demarcation will be shot. When his wife is arrested, Pierre decides to switch his allegiance.

After being freed from a Vietnamese war prison, French Lt. Col. Pierre Raspeguy is sent to help quell resistance forces in Algeria. With the help of the Capt. Esclavier, who has grown weary of war, and Capt. Boisfeuras, who lives for it, Raspeguy attempts to convert a rugged band of soldiers into a formidable fighting unit, with the promise of marrying a beautiful countess if he's made a general.

When his wife leaves him, a young French actor, François Combe, moves to New York to work for a television company. One evening, he meets an attractive young woman, Kay Larsi, in a bar.

After killing his girl friend, Ana, Amador (a dark and strange man) joins his family (which he can't stand) in Torremolinos, where he gets involved in the assassination of a foreigner woman. It is also in Torremolinos, where Amador meets Laura, a woman who falls in love with him...

In this lighthearted crime comedy, Nicolas is a Barcelona ice cream vendor who inadvertently helps a friend who has just committed a robbery. He is chased by several shady underworld characters trying to get their hands on the stolen loot.

In a chain reaction of romantic adventures, various people play musical beds in a remake of Max Ophul's "La Ronde."

Lisa, a young wealthy has just been dumped by one of her lovers. One night at a bar in Torremolinos met Paul Vallier and asks Rudolph will you call tonight? Vallier is a writer in crisis intellectual and sentimental. Lisa falls for him but he is engaged to another man. An overdose of pills makes it look clear and at the last moment when he would fly out with her fiance is advised by an old friend of Vallier to return to him. Well it does and it is in the same bar and join hands.

During World War II a young Frenchmen sees his brother killed in Alsace by a German officer. He vows revenge on all Germans, but after the War he is conscripted into the French Army and sent to Indochina. There he meets his brother's killer under strange circumstances.

A haunting short version of Edgar Allan Poe's famous story about a cruel and unusual punishment inflicted on a victim of the Spanish Inquisition...

Intercutting dramatic vignettes with newsreel footage, the story follows the characters from an infantry squad as they make their way from Sicily to Germany during the end of World War II.

Although his alcoholism has been treated, Alain still feels he is deeply unwell and does not feel he can leave the detoxification clinic once and for all. His wife, living in New York, continues to pay for his treatment, but no longer contacts him directly. He intends to commit suicide, but first takes a ride to Paris to catch up with old friends.

Casablanca 1942. While French Police Chief Maurice Desjardins is busy having careless fun with some loose girls, members of the French Resistance kill a man at the harbor and steal his briefcase full of important documents from the Third Reich. At an apartment building in the distance, Andre Kuhn watches the whole operation through his powerful binoculars. He is posing as a businessman but actually working as a spy for the Germans a fact totally ignored by his live-in girlfriend Teresa Villar, a beautiful Spanish singer who works at El Dorado Night Club. Andre telephones Max von Stauffen, the head of German Intelligence in Casablanca, to inform him of what he has just witnessed. Max tells him to stay put until he arrives in order to get the information personally but, by the time he reaches Andres apartment, he finds him dead with a gun shot on his temple.

A valuable ruby ​​disappears during an earthquake. Professor Ferlach is tasked with excavating the buried temple. Mysterious things are happening during the excavation and strangers are trying to stop them. The archaeologist Prof. Ferlach gets unexpected help from the animal catcher Larry Stone and his daughter Helga, who actively help with the research and excavations.

Two total strangers suspect each other of murdering their own wives.

In this French murder mystery, a young journalist goes from a bad situation to much worse. He has been having problems in his relationship with his girlfriend, and one evening he goes out on a bender. Too drunk to remember how he got that way, he goes home to sleep it off. When he wakes up in the morning, he discovers that his hangover is the least of his problems -- he is now a suspect in a murder investigation. After getting back together with his girlfriend, he decides to hide out with a friend of his and let the heat cool down -- a big mistake, as he soon finds out.

Michel Jussieu, a film producer, returns one morning to the cabaret where he forgot his sweater. He discovers the corpse of an extreme right-wing journalist, but immediately he is knocked out. He wakes up in the police station ...

The French Michel and the Senegalese Malik, childhood friends now grown and both working in government, deal with rapid changes taking place as Senegal becomes independent.

Abandoned by her lover Philippe, Michèle, a Parisian fashion designer, tries to kill herself. She is saved by her doctor and Ann, a young American nurse, who takes up residence in Michèle's apartment to keep an eye on her patient.

A woman becomes distressed by the resemblance between the plot of a film and the reality of her own life. But what is reality: life or film?

Released from a boarding school of nuns in Como, the seventeen-year-old Milanese Elena Giordani manages to convince her parents to let her spend the summer holidays together with her Genoese friend Diana D'Aquino in her villa in Rapallo.

A young woman working as a maid for a big time stage performer is mistaken for the star in Buenos Aires and becomes a great success in the land of the tango.

Tom Ripley is a talented mimic, moocher, forger and all-around criminal improviser; but there's more to Tom Ripley than even he can guess.

Antonio is the leader of an underground armed group fighting in the village of Ronda against Napoleon's troops which have imposed French rule in 1808 Spain. Micaela is madly in love with Antonio but he is devoted to Carmen, the region's most beautiful gypsy who lives and sings at a local inn.

A man falls in love with Lina , a hot girl with a racy past who creates a sensation among the workers.

Jean, who is the artistic director of a fashion magazine, is married to a very pretty cover girl, Sylvie. They both work for André Reverdy, a very cynical man, who openly covets Sylvie.

London, England, during World War II. After living a tragic life experience, young Violette Szabo joins the Special Operations Executive and crosses the German enemy lines as a secret agent to aid a French Resistance group.

A self-assured businessman murders his employer, the husband of his mistress, which unintentionally provokes an ill-fated chain of events.

Greece, in the 1920s, is occupied by the Turks. The country is in turmoil with entire villages uprooted. The site of the movie is a Greek village that conducts a passion play each year. The leading citizens of the town, under the auspices of the Patriarch, choose those that will play the parts in the Passion. A stuttering shepherd is chosen to play Jesus. The town butcher (who wanted to be Jesus) is chosen as Judas. The town prostitute is chosen as Mary Magdalene. The rest of the disciples are also chosen. As the movie unfolds, the Passion Play becomes a reality. A group of villagers, uprooted by the war and impoverished, arrive at the village led by their priest. The wealthier citizens of the town want nothing with these people and manipulate a massacre. In the context of the 1920s, each of the characters plays out their biblical role in actuality.

The love affair of an ex-convict with a showgirl, unleashes the jealousy of his older, wealthy and unbalanced wife. A murder plot, staged phoney suicide and other twists and turns follow.

Brulard, a French civil engineer on assignment in a remote Swedish village, meets Ina, who has been raised in forested isolation by her haggish mother and believes herself to be a witch. He falls in love with her and tries to convert her to civilization; but in the meantime, his female boss, Kristina, has fallen in love with him, while the villagers turn against him for consorting with someone they believe is cursed by the Devil.

A novel by Michel De Saint Pierre was the source for Les Aristocrates. Pierre Fresnay stars an aging Marquis, who tries his best to uphold the traditions of nobility in an ever-changing world. The Marquis' children prefer the trappings of modern society and pop culture and regard their father as a relic. This cultural clash nearly results in tragedy when two of the Marquis' offspring substitute recklessness for common sense.

He was nicknamed Gueule d'ange (Angel's Face) because of his good looks, which enabled him to make a certain amount of money from wealthy ladies. Having given up on touching little Marie, he fell into the clutches of fashionable decorator Loina. Both love money, both go for it. Their characters bind them together. So much so that when Loina falls on hard times, Gueule d'ange would fly to help her. A loyal friend stops him. Loina leaves. Distraught, the handsome boy looks inward. It's time for him to settle down.

As soon as he graduated from the Naples Conservatory, Vincenzo Bellini meets Maddalena Fumaroli and immediately falls in love with her.

The film covers a hundred years in the lives of the Ricordi family, the Milan publishing house of the title, and the various composers and other historic personalities, whose careers intersected with the growth of the Ricordi house. It beautifully draws the parallel between the great music of the composers, the historic and social upheavals of their times, as well as the "smaller stories" of the successive generations of Ricordi.

When the seductive Frenchwoman Geneviève Dupré, secretary to a Spanish businessman, travels to Madrid to announce the death of her boss to his brother, the famous bullfighter Mario Montes, it's love at first sight. Set in Spain, this melodrama is full of light, betrayal and blood, and takes place in the murky world of bullfighting.

Pierre Laurent, a former doctor, has established himself as a renowned healer in Brittany. A young girl, Isabelle, who follows his results with admiration, declares her love for him and becomes engaged. The reactions of his former colleagues bring Pierre before the courts. A misunderstanding with Isabelle thwarts the wedding plans. Later, the young girl, suffering from a brain tumor, allows herself to be cured by the healer. Pierre does not cure her, but leads her to her death without suffering.

In the early 16th century, Italy is ruled by the powerful Borgia family, led by César Borgia and his sister Lucrèce. In a ruthless power play, César plots to have his sister’s husband murdered. But without her brother’s knowledge, Lucrèce has taken a strong lover who will challenge the Borgias.

FBI Agent Lemmy Caution is sent after a missing two million in Casablanca while mob boss mistress Carlotta plays both sides of the law.

The life story of famed French aviatrix Helene Boucher is detailed in Horizons sans fin (Endless Horizons). Giselle Pascal stars as Boucher, who is first seen in 1930, leaving her millinery shop behind in favor of the wild blue yonder. Though the world of aviation was still essentially an all-male one (despite England's Amy Johnson and America's Amelia Earhart), Boucher perseveres, eventually breaking all existing male and female speed and height records. A bit slow on the uptake in the dramatic scenes, the film soars (no pun intended) during the aerial sequences. Horizons san Fin was the winner of the Catholic Award at the 1953 Cannes Film Festival.

Ireland, 1922. In the midst of a national uprising, Catherine, a young orphan employed in household chores, goes in search of her brother whom she has heard in a dream calling for help.

A compilation of segments covers the seven deadly sins of greed, wrath, envy, pride, lust, sloth, and gluttony.

Professor Louis Delage is a kidney transplant specialist. He is so good in his field that his peers nickname him the "great man". But one day, one of his patients die during surgery and Delage starts doubting. Is he actually such a great man? To fight desperation he decides to take in the deceased child while devoting more time to Florence, his hitherto neglected wife.

Hopes and love and ambitions and friendship in a group of young jazz-loving Parisians.