Agnès Varda's T'as de beaux escaliers tu sais | You've Got Beautiful Stairs, You Know (1986)

The title T'as de beaux escaliers tu sais is an allusion to one of the most famous lines in French movie history: 'T'as de beaux yeux tu sais' ('You've got beautiful eyes, you know'), spoken by the Jean Gabin character to Michèle Morgan in Marcel Carné's Quai des brumes just before she says 'Embrassez-moi!'. In this tiny short which celebrates fifty years of the Cinémathèque Française, with its fifty steps, Varda says it's not an advert but 'c'est un hommage en forme de réclame' ('a homage in the guise of an advert'). When Varda names the title of the film and shows the steps, this is immeditely followed by a short clip of Gabin not from Quai des brumes but from Pépé le Moko. A number of other films are shown: Varda packs a great deal into just three minutes.

The above photo is of course of Isabelle Adjani.