Pierre Magnier

Sisif, a railwayman, and his son Elie fall in love with the beautiful Norma (whom Sisif rescued from a train crash when a baby and raised as his daughter), with tragic results. Originally running nine hours, this epic tragedy is notable for the way it foreshadows Gance's later 'Napoleon' in its use of innovative cinematic devices, particularly rapid cutting. (imdb)

Cyrano de Begerac is joyous, witty, a poet, a leader and filled with plenty of charisma and bravado in 17th Century France. He has only one flaw: an unusually long nose which makes him unattractive to any woman. Thus, he cannot have the woman he loves, his cousin Roxanne. Roxanne loves an officer in his army who gets tongue-tied in front of women. Who will Roxanne love? Will Cyrano ever find love? Or will he find happiness in helping the officer woo Roxanne? (imdb)

The movie consists solely of a saber fight. Bernhardt plays a cross-gender Hamlet, and Pierre Magnier is her fellow duelist, Laertes. A few bystanders, in Rennaissance dress, stand off to the right of the screen, and in the background, next to a painted backdrop. (imdb)

Serenade represented the return to the screen of international favorite Lillian Harvey after an absence of two years. Based loosely on the life of composer Franz Schubert, the film casts Bernard Lancret as Schubert, Harvey as his dancer sweetheart, and Louis Jouvet as a possessive Baron who has his own designs on our heroine. Ultimately, the Baron gracefully bows out of the girl's life, allowing her to serve as the inspiration for Schubert's classic compositions "Serenade" and "Rosalinde".

One of the most expensive French films of the immediate postwar years, L'Affaire du Collier de la Reine is primarily a vehicle for the formidable Vivian Romance. The star plays an aristocrat in the court of Louis XVI, who helps engineer a scheme to divest the Queen of her royal necklace. On the verge of success, the "heroine" is found out, and forced to submit to whipping and torture. (KG)

A more small scale version of the story Griffin used for his epic Orphans Of The Storm: a doctor tries to reunite two sisters who have become separated from each other during the whirlwind of the French Revolution.