Jean Castan

Francoise is seduced and betrayed by a wandering worker, and her father, Galubert, allows her to return to his home on the condition that she and the child stay concealed in the cellar. She is discovered there by a cluck, who falls in with her. (imdb)

Cigalon (Alexandre Arnaudy) manages a restaurant in a small town in Provence. A chef with a high opinion of his past culinary achievements, he makes no effort to attract customers and is rude to those who venture into his establishment expecting to be fed. To Cigalon, gastronomy is the greatest of all the arts, and so he is naturally aghast when a former laundress named Madame Toffi (Marguerite Chabert) opens a restaurant next door to his.

"Merlusse" is French schoolboy slang for codfish, and M. Blanchard, a professor at a certain lycée, was known to his victims by that name. On Christmas eve, when some twenty of the students--orphans, foreigners or just plain "unwanteds"--had to remain in the boarding school, Merlusse is placed in charge.