An unnamed man narrates the downward trajectory of his life from beyond the grave, from delinquency to the string of fateful decisions and foolhardy moves that tied him inextricably to the opiate that was the elusive love of his life.
Director
Martial Jordan
Luc Froment, a reform-minded engineer, starts working at a steel mill in a small town. There he founds small groups of workers (and their families) under miserable conditions. Under the influence of Fourier's ideas, Froment tries to turn the mill into a workers' co-operative.
Adapted from Hugo's eponym novel, the story concerns a Guernseyman named Gilliatt, a social outcast who falls in love with Deruchette, the niece of a local shipowner, Mess Lethierry. When Lethierry's ship is wrecked on the Roches Douvres, a perilous reef, Deruchette promises to marry whomever can salvage the ship's steam engine. Gilliatt eagerly volunteers, and the story follows both his physical trials and tribulations.
Le comte de Monte Cristo (15 Episodes). Monte Cristo, based upon Alexandre Dumas' novel of the same name, tells the story of Edmond Dantès, an innocent man jailed for 14 years after being wrongfully convicted. He succeeds to escape prison, finds a treasure on the isle of Montecristo and wreaks revenge on the ones who put him in prison.
Bonnemort
Based on Emile Zola's novel, an uncompromisingly harsh and realistic story of a coalminers' strike in northern France in the 1860s.
Le savetier Tiron
The young daughter of an army captain missing in action runs away from school and is kidnapped by Parisian lowlifes. When the kidnapper flees to Nice with the child, the kind-hearted employee of one of his accomplices sets off in pursuit.
The Father
Early Gaumont short by an unknown director.