Paul Dullac

Desiring to give his compatriots a taste for laughter, a comic Marseilles founds a club with friends whose joke is the reason for living and tries to breathe new life into the sleeping city.

They are three fishermen from the Old Port: Toinet, Pénible and Girelle. Two of them are in love with two pretty merchants. Not confident in their natural seduction, they decide to use drastic measures to be sure to attract and sustain the attention of these young ladies. This is how they approach them by posing as wealthy industrialists. But now the young girls, not to be outdone, present themselves as film actresses.

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 laughed at his cuckoldry, take the matter very seriously (they want the bread) and organize a plan to find Aurelie and to bring her back to the bakery.

A film about the early part of the French Revolution, shown from the eyes of the citizens of Marseille, counts in German exile and, of course, the king Louis XVI, each showing their own small problems.

Honoré Panisse is dying, cheerfully, with friends, wife, and son at his side. He confesses to the priest in front of his friends; he insists that the doctor be truthful. But, he cannot bring himself to tell his son Césariot that his real father is Marius, the absent son of César, Césariot's godfather. Panisse leaves that to Fanny, the lad's mother. Dissembling that he's off to see a friend, Césariot then seeks Marius, now a mechanic in Toulon. Posing as a journalist, Césariot spends time with Marius and leaves believing tales he is a petty thief. Only after the truth comes out can Marius, Fanny, César, and Césariot step beyond the falsehoods, benign though they may be.

A girl, Marie, who got engaged to a boy who is leaving for military training (thirteen days) wins two million on the raffle, thanks to an older man, Claude, whom she calls her good luck …

Misfortunes and disarray of the little clown Leroy who is upstaged by a comrade, Bertini, and sees himself abandoned by his girlfriend Ginette, preferring his collaborator to him.

César runs a bar along Marseilles' port, assisted by his 23 year old son, Marius. Colorful characters abound: M. Panisse, an aging widower and prosperous sail maker; Honorine, a fishmonger with a sidewalk stall near the bar; her daughter, Fanny, who helps her sell cockles just outside the bar; and various old salts. 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 departing clipper needs a deckhand, Marius and Fanny must decide who and what they love most. César, with his generous, wise spirit, tries to guide his son.