Cécile Guyon

Based on Emile Zola's novel, an uncompromisingly harsh and realistic story of a coalminers' strike in northern France in the 1860s.

Gribiche, a young boy whose mother is a war widow, gets adopted by a rich woman. She wants to turn him into a perfect gentleman, but soon he feels unhappy.

In 1912 Jasset turned from fantasy and spectacle to realism in making the first of two Zola adaptations, as part of Éclair's new series of social dramas. For Au pays des ténèbres, based on Germinal, he took his crew to Charleroi in Belgium to film in authentic locations, and although he updated the story to the present, he went to great lengths to recreate in the studio the detail of the actual mining galleries, exploiting the ability of film to be a recorder of contemporary reality.

Propaganda spy-movie, Belgian-French production, directed by Honoré and Georges Lainé. A village girl repels the advances of the miller's son, who cowardly leaves for the German army. During the war he transforms into a ruthless soldier seeking for revenge on his village. A melodramatic story as alibi for anti-German propaganda.

"Scene, a first-class railway carriage. Max and delightful girl alone. "May I smoke?" breaks the ice, and then Max brings all the arts of fascination to bear on the lady, who is by no means shy. Max calls next day. Her father is in the enamel bath and geyser line. Max is making love; a customer enters. Girlie hides Max in portable shower bath. Enter father, who is a good salesman. He turns on the shower - and Max. What a delightful comedian Linder is." (The Bioscope, Nov. 22, 1917)

Short World War I film.