Donnez-moi ma chance (1957)

Nicole is 17. She has just learned that she has won a young talent competition sponsored by the Paris film studio Cinémonde. Despite opposition from her father and her boyfriend Georges, but with her mother’s support, she leaves Châteauneuf, her town in Indre-et-Loire, and goes to Paris. As soon as she arrives, Gilbert, one of the men on the team, begins courting her, and she befriends another young woman, Kiki, who dreams of becoming an actress. With little money, she discovers the harsh realities of life. She has to pay for food, rent, and bills. When she needs photos taken for the producers, the photographer offers to take them in exchange for her posing nude. She takes acting lessons from a renowned teacher and tries to join a theater company. Unfortunately, the play is a failure. Suffering from emotional isolation, she gradually falls in love with Gilbert, and they have a chaste relationship. Short of money, she eventually goes to the photographer’s studio to pose nude and earn a little money, but her luck is out: the police raid the place while she is undressed, and she is taken to the police station. Touched by the young woman’s explanations, the policeman releases her without notifying her parents. She goes to Gilbert’s to be comforted, but discovers that the man she loves is having an affair with another woman. As she wanders the streets of Paris in a daze, she is hit by a car. She is taken to Boucicaut Hospital, and Kiki, having heard about the accident, informs Georges, Nicole’s former boyfriend from Châteauneuf. Georges comes to visit Nicole in the hospital. The young woman is touched by her former boyfriend’s visit. When Kiki arrives, she tells the couple that filmmaker Fournier intends to offer Nicole an important role in his next film. Nicole has a choice: will she choose her career or love? In the end, Nicole tells Kiki that she will turn down Fournier’s offer and leave Paris.