Léon Bernard

The works of Marcel Pagnol are a veritable monument of French cultural heritage. Based on previously unseen archive material, film extracts, novels, plays, interviews and letters, the film pays tribute to the major author and popular filmmaker, who made his life a work and his work a life's project.

This is the story of a wealthy bourgeois who marries his only child, a daughter, to a penniless nobleman because he hopes to use his son-in-law to get a title. The son-in-law is a lazy, affected stereotype; but M. Poirier is also a stereotype, of the obnoxious big businessman. The poor daughter, who falls in love with her husband, lets him walk all over her.

Blanchette, whose parents have sacrificed to give her an education, has received her teaching diploma, but is unable to find work. A dispute with her father leads to her being throw out of the house, and she goes to Paris to look for work.

At trial the prosecuting attorney makes a startling confession: the defendant is his son whose pitiful fate led him to murder. The attorney left the young man's pregnant mother, and the unwed poor thing had to fight against a hostile world.

French silent film.

With Jean-Baptiste at the front, Louise takes care of Bébé with the help of Uncle Pierre. The letters she receives from Jean-Baptiste worry her, but Pierre distracts Bébé with a box of tin soldiers. That night, Bébé has a dream of his soldiers vanquishing the enemy, and the next morning, Jean-Baptiste surprises the family by returning home.

No plot available for this movie.

No plot available for this movie.

Based on Emile Zola's novel, an uncompromisingly harsh and realistic story of a coalminers' strike in northern France in the 1860s.

Directed by Albert Capellani.