Alex Allin

Romantic novelist George Sand's Mauprat as adapted by cinema visionary Jean Epstein. As a child, orphan Bernard de Mauprat was adopted by Tristan, a brigand who brought him up with his biological sons to hate, kill and pillage. Hubert de Mauprat, the elder brother of Tristan, the very incarnation of nobility, and his daughter, the beautiful and intrepid Edmée, undertake to tear wild-eyed Bernard away from his uncle. Still uncouth and rough, Bernard endeavors to wrest the love of Edmée away from her betrothed.

Fates of multiple otherwise disconnected characters intertwine miraculously under the sky of Paris. And it all happens in one day.

Obsessed with a general's wife, a clergyman has strange visions of death and lust, struggling against his own eroticism.

On the day of Fadinard's wedding, his horse eats a lady's hat on a bush at the roadside, while the lady is hidden behind the bush with her lover Lieutenant Tavernier. Because she is married, she cannot return home hatless without being compromised, and Tavernier orders Fadinard to replace the hat with one exactly like it - or else he will wreck his new home. In an elaborate sequence of complications, Fadinard tries to find a hat while keeping to his marriage schedule

Alain Marchal, wrongly accused of murdering his wife, escapes from prison the day before his execution. Before committing suicide, he contacts Monsieur Charles, a retired gangster, and asks him to investigate, find the real culprit and clear his name. Monsieur Charles accepts his request and along with his wife Ginette and two former accomplices, Paragraphe and Teddy Coffre fort, embarks on his counter-investigation.

Following a 19th-century play penned by Benjamin Antier, the figure of Robert Macaire, bandit and rogue, enjoyed popularity in several contexts. One of the most detailed treatments may be found in Epstein’s LES AVENTURES DE ROBERT MACAIRE, which he executed in five interrelated episodes.