Pépé le Moko, one of France's most wanted criminals, hides out in the Casbah section of Algiers. He knows police will be waiting for him if he tries to leave the city. When Pépé meets Gaby, a gorgeous woman from Paris who is lost in the Casbah, he falls for her.
César runs a bar along Marseilles' port, assisted by his 23-year-old son, Marius. Friends since childhood, Fanny and Marius love each other, but Marius has a secret wanderlust: every ship's whistle stirs a longing for foreign lands. When M. Panisse seeks Fanny's hand in marriage and when a...
In this little Provencal village, a new baker, Aimable, settles down. His wife Aurelie is beautiful and much younger than he. She departs with a shepherd the night after Aimable produces his first breads. Aimable is so afflicted that he can not work anymore. Therefore, the villagers, who initially...
Five unemployed workers win 100,000 Francs in the national lottery. Instead of sharing the money, they buy a ruin and build an open-air cafe. But difficulties come to split their friendly group apart.
Leaping forward twenty years, the trilo'gy continues with the death of Fanny's husband, Panisse, and the discovery of her secret by her son, Césariot. The young man resolves to track down his biological father, Marius, whose life has been fraught with calamity and poverty.
Soon after Marius's departure, Fanny learns that she is pregnant with his child, to the disappointment of her mother and of Marius's father, César. To secure a better life for her unborn child, she accepts a marriage proposal from the aging widower Honoré Panisse.
Pierre risks being taken advantage of by an agency that sets up financial scams, he escapes thanks to Marcelle, the secretary of the director of the agency, who is a childhood friend. She does her best to keep the young man away from the scams of his boss. However, the director, in love with...
Tartarin is the local hero in the small provincial town of Tarascon. He shows off about imaginary adventures in Africa, where he has never been, as a Lion Hunter, which he is only in his imagination. Even though the locals know he has never been to Africa, they keep hoping he will leave one day....
Two twin brothers have joined the army, Paul by vocation is a lieutenant of spahis and Georges to escape the police is a sergeant in the Foreign Legion. A snitch having informed the police of Georges' presence at the Legion, he must leave. In Casablanca, Paul helps his brother escape the police by...
Prince Sacha studies in Paris and cares more for Marianne than about Silistrie, the country his family was exiled from. But Chautard, a French financier, who has business there (the country is rich in oil), wouldn't mind a little political stability. So why not restore the ancient royal family to...
The wife of a Marseille industrialist is murdered. An inspector and a young journalist investigate together, and suspect the husband, then the lover, before finding the real culprit.
Sylvie, a young woman who believes to be cursed, lives in the town of Carcassonne with her guardian, Mr. Toulzac. He is a retired teacher who wishes to discover the secret of the Cathars, a Christian sect of the Middle Ages that glorified death over life. Sylvie meets Roland, a composer who...
Madame Clapain dies in dubious circumstances at the home of the Cadifon ladies, of which she was a tenant. A friendly inspector and Thérèse Cadifon each carry out their own investigation.
Following a slight accident, a stranger appears in a Provençal village and knocks at the door of the Philippes'villa, asking them for help. Albert Philippe is suspicious but his wife shows some interest in the man. After leaving the Philippe family, the unknown man goes to the village, meets the...
In 1914, in the first months of World War I, Louise Jarraud loses her husband, killed on the front. Shortly after, she gives birth to a baby, who soon dies. Devastated by this double misfortune, Louise decides to dedicate her life to caring for the children of others. She becomes a nurse with...
A pompous grocer’s assistant in Marseille annoys a visiting film crew so much that they prank him with a phony acting contract; believing it to be real, the “schpountz” heads to Paris for his new career.
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,...
François Chotard, wholesale grocer, gives his daughter in marriage to Julien Collinet, a writer who prefers dreaming to working, a situation conducive to quarrels between the son and the father- in-law. Until the day when Julien receives the Prix Goncourt, prestigious literary award. Chotard has a...
Fadinard is going through the woods on his horse en route to his wedding. Unfortunately, his horse eats the straw hat of a married woman who is having a secret rendezvous with her lover. In order to save the woman's honor, Fadinard must find the exact same type of hat to replace the one his horse...
