First in Line

Drama in a small German water town where various characters clash against a backdrop of money, gambling and love.

A person who had usurped the identity of a famous writer of detective stories was killed in the train. Why and by whom?

On prize-giving day, a few dunces recall various incidents that marked their school year.

Mathilde Stangerson just married her fiance, when she heard that Larsan, her cruel former husband, whom she believed to be dead, is actually very much alive. Taking refuge to her castle, she appealed to the journalist Rouletabille to protect her.

In the 1880s, Georges Duroy, back from the Colonies, arrives in Paris with the firm intention of conquering the capital through his power of seduction, his selfishness and cynicism. Entering into journalism through the back door he will soon rise to the top with the support of several women: Madeleine Forestier, the wife of his journalist friend Charles; Clothilde de Marelle, his first mistress; Virginie Walter, the wife of a newspaper owner; Suzanne Walter, her daughter who eventually marries Duroy.

A young man comes back to his hometown to be confronted with a bourgeois obnoxious family who has always despised his - now dead - parents because they were music hall artists, "entertainers". But because he's the sole legatee of an uncle's fortune, his relatives become friendly with him... at least for a while.

A student from an elementary school accidentally breaks the glass roof of his school. His comrades decide to support it by working during the summer holidays in order to pay for reconstruction.

In a settlement in the northern mining country. The Marles, Bréhard and Gohelle families wake up and prepare for a new day at work. The young engineer Larzac, newly appointed to the mine, will soon oppose the authoritarian and conservative methods of his superior Dubard. Georges Gohelle would like to marry Marie Bréhard, but housing difficulties thwart their plans. Brezza, a Polish immigrant, who must return to his country, would like to hate his marriage to Louise Gohelle. Roger, Marie's little brother, has just turned 14. He does not want to go down to the mine as his elders have always done. He will however have to resign himself to it. Marles evokes for him the social struggles of 1906. Roger is injured during a landslide. In front of his family and his friend Marles, who had come to the hospital, he announced his decision to continue his profession. Larzac, invited to the Marles, reveals that he refused a quiet position at the Charbonnages de Paris. He too stays.

A provincial, Julie Moret, is hired as a servant in a Parisian bourgeois residence. She is courted by one of the Bouquinquant brothers, Léon, who does not take long to ask her to marry him. Alas, Léon turns out to be violent, alcoholic and lazy. Faced with her misfortune, Julie gets closer to her brother-in-law Pierre, the opposite of Léon, serious and hardworking, and they become lovers. The drama will rush when Julie becomes pregnant with Pierre.

Lucien Bourrache, a good looking non-commissioned officer at the Spahis, is used to charm many women. He met Madeleine Courtois at Cannes. She is beautiful and lives in luxury. He lends her a large amount of money, which she loses gambling. Then she drops him. But Lucien is now in love, and once demobilized, he goes to Paris to find her again. But he's not so sexy without his uniform, and Madeleine and him do not belong to the same milieu.

Lyrical biography of the classical composer, depicted as a romantic hero, an accursed artist.

Mathias Pascal, saddled with a stupid wife and a nagging mother-in-law, leaves home and is extremely lucky at several gambling resorts. He returns home and discovers that a drowned man, fished out of the river, bears an uncanny likeness to him and is being buried by his family as him. This, to him, is a pleasant turn of events and he goes to Rome, where he falls in love with Louise Paleari. Count Papiano, a jealous suitor of Louise's, threatens him with arrest unless he produces credentials to prove his identity.

A married tugboat captain falls for a woman he rescues from a sinking ship.

The machinations of an ex-officer and a servant who want to get their hands on a fortune.

The title translates as Fools of Bărăgan, in reference to a band of beleaguered feudal Rumanian peasants. But these are no fools: instead, they are fearless freedom fighters, organizing a brave (though foredoomed) revolt against the tyranny of the landowners. The parallels drawn between the people of Bărăgan and Russia's revolutionary leaders are all but impossible to miss. It would have been nice, however, if the story had not been told in such a heavy-handed, spell-it-all-out fashion.

Captain Joris Kniper believes so strongly that he is "skipper next to God" that he is used to playing God on his ship. Tough and bossy, he gives orders which are not to be discussed. But, some day, he is driven to accept on board several German Jews fleeing the nazis and who are refused asylum everywhere. He gradually realizes that skipper he is, but next to God only.The Bible will help him to find the way to self-questioning, awareness and charity.