Henri Poupon

Truant School

1920, in a small village in Provence. Monsieur Pascal, a young schoolteacher, is faced with a lack of interest from his pupils. He decides to radically change the methods employed by his predecessor. He listens to the children, draws inspiration from their discoveries and takes them out into nature. The pupils will rediscover the pleasure of learning, and he will rediscover the pleasure of teaching. But some parents and notables don't take kindly to this little revolution.

Merlusse

"Merlusse" is French schoolboy slang for codfish, and M. Blanchard, a professor at a certain lycée, was known to his victims by that name. On Christmas Eve, when some twenty of the students—orphans, foreigners or just plain "unwanteds"—had to remain in the boarding school, Merlusse is placed in charge. His glass eye glares at them stonily, his good one with no less severity. He sets them to tasks, marches like a proctor up and down the aisles, exacts to the utmost the last measure of discipline. But when the youngsters awake in the morning, there are toys by each bed in the dormitory and M. Blanchard, no longer to be called Merlusse, is exposed for the softhearted fraud he is.

L'Embuscade

A young man is hired by an industrialist, while a secret hangs over his birth. His boss's wife turns out to be his mother, who hides the truth from him.

Heartbeat

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.

Lady Killer

Lucien Bourrache, a good looking non-commissioned officer at the Spahis, is used to charm many women. He met Madeleine Courtois at Cannes. She is beautiful and lives in luxury. He lends her a large amount of money, which she loses gambling. Then she drops him. But Lucien is now in love, and once demobilized, he goes to Paris to find her again. But he's not so sexy without his uniform, and Madeleine and him do not belong to the same milieu.

Harvest

In the 30s, a small village in the Provence is losing its inhabitants because young people prefer to go to the city to find easy jobs and escape from being farmers living in relative poverty. Only a few old people and the poacher Panturle remain. Panturle dreams of bringing the village back to life, finding a wife, founding a family and work as a farmer. One day, the village is visited by a traveling knife-grinder, Urbain Gedemus and a young woman, Arsule. Gedemus treats Arsule like a slave, but Arsule accept this because she has nowhere to go and -we guess- her 'work' with Gedemus is the last thing that saves her from being a prostitute. When she meets Panturle and knows about his dreams, she escapes from Gedemus and decides to stay with him. Together, they start a new life, made of hard farming work but mostly of happiness to have each other, fulfilling the earlier dreams of Panturle. Can anything break the happiness of their new life?

L'Arlésienne

In the Camargue a local young playboy named Frédéri falls in love with a young woman from Arles. His family thinks she is unsuitable as a wife because she had a fling with a soldier. His entourage attempt to cheer him up but he intends to commit suicide.

Mirror

Portrait of a two-faced man. By day he is rich, brilliant and respectable financial officer Lussac; at night, he becomes "Mirror", a ruthless gang leader in Marseilles.

Topaze

Stormy Waters

A married tugboat captain falls for a woman he rescues from a sinking ship.