In 1996, Claude Autant-Lara (1901-2000) bequeathed his entire personal archives to the Cinémathèque suisse (Swiss Film Library). Active for half a century, Autant-Lara was a shining light of French cinema in the 1940s–1950s, the golden age of studio cinema and of its major stars. He therefore was acquainted with, rubbed shoulders with or attacked all of France’s celebrated creative figures of the era.
Consequently, a complete selection of French artistic creations is represented through correspondence, a myriad of photos, posters, gouaches and sketches of sets and costumes, scripts and work plans illustrating the various stages of the “crafting” of films such as Devil in the Flesh (1947), The Red Inn (1951), Wheat grass (1953), Scarlet and Black (1954), Crossing Paris (1956), Love is My Profession (1958) and Thou shalt not kill (1961).