Acting
In the Camargue a local young playboy named Frédéri falls in love with a young woman from Arles. His family thinks she is unsuitable as a wife because she had a fling with a soldier. His entourage attempt to cheer him up but he intends to commit suicide.
In a small Provençal port, a young girl tries to divert a fisherman from his laborious life and his chaste loves.
Aubrey is a debt-ridden man. One day, he has the idea of ​​faking his death and taking on the role of a deceased cousin about to receive a beautiful inheritance. This idea will, however, lead him to very difficult situations.
Pépé le Moko, one of France's most wanted criminals, hides out in the Casbah section of Algiers. He knows police will be waiting for him if he tries to leave the city. When Pépé meets Gaby, a gorgeous woman from Paris who is lost in the Casbah, he falls for her.
Leaping forward twenty years, the trilogy continues with the death of Fanny's husband, Panisse, and the discovery of her secret by her son, Césariot. The young man resolves to track down his biological father, Marius, whose life has been fraught with calamity and poverty.
At the beginning of World War I in a village in the country of La Marne, two families are against the marriage of their children. The war changes the positions.
A pompous grocer’s assistant in Marseille annoys a visiting film crew so much that they prank him with a phony acting contract; believing it to be real, the “schpountz” heads to Paris for his new career.
Ignace Boitaclou, although sympathetic, is not very intelligent. Upon his arrival at the barracks to perform his military service, he was appointed colonel and had to take care of the latter's terrible wife.
Strange things are happening in the small town of Breuil-le-Château. Provisions from the black market are stolen regularly and wealthy young men, including the squire's son, start vanishing... Ransom demands are sent but with an illegible signature. The investigation is trusted to Ducreux, the local police brigadier. He is assisted by Carlier, a film director in search of locations for his next movie, who has been mistaken for a police inspector from Paris. The two men will have more than their share of surprises.
A young man who wishes to launch his girlfriend in the theater, borrows money from his aunt, making her believe that he wants to buy groceries. His aunt arrives and then wishes to visit “her” grocery store; to save the day he borrows the store of a credulous grocer.
Five unemployed workers win 100,000 Francs in the national lottery. Instead of sharing the money, they buy a ruin and build an open-air cafe. But difficulties come to split their friendly group apart.
In 1914, in the first months of World War I, Louise Jarraud loses her husband, killed on the front. Shortly after, she gives birth to a baby, who soon dies. Devastated by this double misfortune, Louise decides to dedicate her life to caring for the children of others. She becomes a nurse with several employers, giving her affection to little boys or girls. A widower and another man propose to her but she refuses twice determined as she is to live only for the children in her charge.
During a transvestite ball, a young provincial meets Fanny Legrand. A great love is born between them. Later, the young man learns that Fanny was a great coquette. He leaves her, he comes back, he forgives. But when he embarks for America, Fanny does not follow him.
César runs a bar along Marseilles' port, assisted by his 23-year-old son, Marius. 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.
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.
Tartarin is the local hero in the small provincial town of Tarascon. He shows off about imaginary adventures in Africa, where he has never been, as a Lion Hunter, which he is only in his imagination. Even though the locals know he has never been to Africa, they keep hoping he will leave one day. After a misunderstanding, and much gossip, everyone thinks that Tartarin plans to actually take the trip.
Cabissol, the Mayor of Martigues, a town in the South of France, wishes to organize a bullfight as part of the coming festivities. But that is not counting on Escopette, an opponent of bullfighting, who kidnaps the bulls. What further complicates things is that the appointed bullfighter, Chico de Granada, takes the French leave with Violette, one of Cabissol's daughters. As a measure of retaliation, Cabissol decides to force Escopette to replace Chico in the arena. Fortunately, Rémy, the head herdsman, comes to his rescue. Finally, everything goes well and Cabissol is so happy that he gives Rémy the hand of Marguerite, his other daughter.
René Sabin, engineer, disappointed by failures, leaves his village in the South to go to Paris with friends. In the capital, he befriends dubious people, in particular Alex Krakow who does not disdain shady business. Then comes the war. René is mobilized then returns to the country, and finds with joy his fiancée.
A young mechanic is given a strange job: to convey the king of the gypsies' embalmed dead body on a very long route.
A gang of broke student musicians travel to Paris to take exams. But very quickly, the lack of money pushes young people to pass themselves off as professionals during the performance. They will then win the victory!