In the 1930s, Marcel Pagnol, a leading light of the Paris theater, set out for new horizons as a filmmaker in his native Provence. His early masterpieces Marius, Fanny, and César mix theatrical stagecraft with realistic location photography to create an epic love story from the fabric of everyday life. Gruff, sentimental César (music-hall star Raimu) owns a waterfront bar in the Old Port of Marseille where his son, Marius (Pierre Fresnay), wipes down tables and dreams of a life at sea. The prosperous, middle-aged sailmaker Panisse (Fernand Charpin) wants to wed Marius’s sweetheart, Fanny (Orane Demazis), setting up a fateful romantic triangle whose story unfolds across a generation in the films of The Marseille Trilogy, which first earned Pagnol his place in cinema history. “If Pagnol is not the greatest auteur of the sound film,” critic André Bazin wrote, “he is in any case something akin to its genius.”

Outwardly, Monsieur Victor would appear to be the model citizen. A respectable Toulon shopkeeper, he has a devoted wife and is courteous and considerate to all who know him. However, beneath this veneer of respectability hides a notorious receiver of stolen goods, who trades with hardened criminals. Victor manages to keep up his double life without any difficulty until the fateful day when one of his partners in crime threatens to expose him. Fearing a scandal, Victor kills the crook in a moment of panic, using a shoemaker's tool. Naturally, the murder is blamed on a local shoemaker, who is sentenced to ten years' hard labour. Seven years later, the former shoemaker reappears in Toulon, having escaped from prison. The first person to recognise him is Monsieur Victor...

Fanny (1932) is a tragicomedy set in Marseille, France. The film follows the story of Fanny, a pregnant woman who finds herself caught in a moral conflict between love and selfishness. As she navigates her pregnancy without a husband, Fanny grapples with her own ego and the platonic love of an older man. Fanny's journey explores themes of maternal love, societal expectations, and the consequences of selfishness. The film portrays the complex emotions and challenges faced by Fanny as she navigates her pregnancy and finds strength in herself and the love of those around her.

The story of a French officer who is assumed dead during the Napoleonic Wars, but returns ten years later to a very different France, both on a political and personal level. The film is based on the novel Colonel Chabert by Honoré de Balzac.

Marius, a fishmonger in Marseille, is torn between his love for Fanny and his desire to go to sea. His indecision and the conflicts it creates among his group of friends lead to a series of humorous and heartwarming situations.

The Well-Digger's Daughter tells the story of an 18-year-old girl in the south of France who becomes pregnant out of wedlock, causing conflict with her father. As she navigates the challenges of being a pregnant teenager in a conservative society, she also faces class differences, the return of an outcast, and the pressures of societal expectations. Through it all, she finds love and support from unexpected sources.

Set in Toulon, France, 'César' follows a young man as he navigates complex family dynamics, including a strained relationship with his father. Unexpected encounters and misunderstandings arise in the waterfront bar where he works as a barkeeper. The film explores themes of loss, confession, and the complexities of human relationships.

A widow reminisces about her past and the different men she has known, and the recurring theme of the night and waltz is seen throughout the film. The story also explores themes of marriage, suicide, and adoption.

The Baker's Wife tells the story of a small village baker whose wife leaves him for a younger man, leading to a series of comedic and dramatic events. The baker must navigate the challenges of love, business, and faith to win his wife back.

In the pound, Pipo the dog recounts his adventures to his fellow inmates.

In a Provençal village, two jolly good fellows, Boule and Pons, decide to dress as Saint Anthony and Saint Nicholas for the distribution of presents to the children on the feast of Saint Nicholas. They unfortunately get killed by a cart and find themselves in Hell where Lucifer and his demons duly torment them. They are saved by a prayer which helps them to climb the stairway to Paradise. Saint Peter, taken in by the applicants' disguise, lets them in. When the two true Saints show up, trouble follows. Luckily, thanks to the intervention of the Virgin Mary, the two friends are acquitted at their celestial trial and allowed to return to Earth.

Loursat, a lawyer, lives with his daughter Nicole in a sinister and vast bourgeois residence. Abandoned for nearly twenty years by his wife, the brilliant lawyer has sunk into alcoholism and his relationship with his daughter is virtually non-existent. However, one day the corpse of a stranger is discovered in the residence of Loursat. Nicole, who frequents a gang of young people who escape boredom by stealing cars and other objects, is immediately suspected.

A kind and generous village noble, specializing in good works, actually leads a double existence and carries out dishonest activities.

For Les étoiles ne meurent jamais, director/archivist Max De Vaucorbeil has assembled precious film clips of such Gallic greats as Louis Jouvet, Raimu, Harry Baur, Louis Salou and Marguerite Moreno. Francois Perier's narration links the various vignettes together. In its own way, Les Etoiles ne Maurent Jamais can be seen as a precursor to those now-ubiquitous "tributes" on such cable services as American Movie Classics and Turner Classic Movies.

The life of disorderly soldiers in the barracks dealing with daily routines.

The story of how the people of Paris cope with the strains and struggles of war, from the siege of the city by the Prussians during the Franco-Prussian War of 1871 to the invasion by the Germans in World War II.

King John IV of Cerdania, who knows monarchs are a vanishing race but who plays his royalty role in state council or boudoir to the hilt, is in Paris to sign a treaty, and becomes enmeshed in intrigue with an actress, Therese Mannix and involved in a bit of cuckoldry with YouYou Bourdier, the ex-seamstress wife of a French senator, who is un-awed by money, power or the King's kisses. For his part, her husband, Senator Bourdier, is glad to use his wealth, wife and collectivist ideals for social position, in spite of his democratic posing.

Slapstick inheritance comedy based on the confusion between twin brothers, both played by the great Raimu who also plays their father.

Célestin, the organist of a convent, has written and composed a light operetta under the name of Floridor. One day, the Mother Superior asks him to chaperone one of the boarders, Denise de Flavigny, who is returning home to get married. Now, Denise, for all her goody goody looks, soon proves as saucy as can be. Things get even more complicated when Célestin starts courting Corinne, the star of his operetta, to the great displeasure of a commander of dragons, the young woman's lover. Worse, the latter is none other than the Mother Superior's brother... To say nothing of Lieutenant Fernand de Champlatreux, who happens to fall in love with Denise, his fiancée that he has never seen before...!

A husband cheats on his wife and gets tangled in a love triangle, leading to hilarious and dramatic situations.