Unjustly sentenced to life imprisonment for forced labor for crimes committed by Jacques Garaud, who hid under another name, Jeanne Fortier escaped twenty years later and became a bread carrier.
"la porteuse de pain" belongs to the tradition of French old melodramas of the nineteenth century serialized in newspapers .The most celebrated of them was Eugène Sue' s "Les Mysteres de Paris";Adolphe D'Ennery's "Les Deux Orphelines" was filmed by DW Griffith as "Orphans of the storm" in the silent era and remade by Maurice Tourneur in the thirties ) .
There has been a lot of adaptations of "la porteuse de pain" since the silent age ;this one is the first talkie version of Xavier De Montépin's tear-jerker .
It's construction is different from the novel : it begins when a distraught Jeanne is welcomed in a priest's vicarage ,and all the events that made the unfortunate mother of two a fugitive become a flashback during her trial ; as for the rest,it's not always successful :for instance the main character ,halfway through the movies , is absent during at least twenty minutes .As the part of the baker's boy was given to the most famous actor of the cast , Fernandel, it's fleshed out and he's is even given a joyous song (reprise in the finale);and the part of son Georges is reduced to the minimum.
"la porteuse de pain" belongs to the tradition of French old melodramas of the nineteenth century serialized in newspapers .The most celebrated of them was Eugène Sue' s "Les Mysteres de Paris";Adolphe D'Ennery's "Les Deux Orphelines" was filmed by DW Griffith as "Orphans of the storm" in the silent era and remade by Maurice Tourneur in the thirties ) .
There has been a lot of adaptations of "la porteuse de pain" since the silent age ;this one is the first talkie version of Xavier De Montépin's tear-jerker .
It's construction is different from the novel : it begins when a distraught Jeanne is welcomed in a priest's vicarage ,and all the events that made the unfortunate mother of two a fugitive become a flashback during her trial ; as for the rest,it's not always successful :for instance the main character ,halfway through the movies , is absent during at least twenty minutes .As the part of the baker's boy was given to the most famous actor of the cast , Fernandel, it's fleshed out and he's is even given a joyous song (reprise in the finale);and the part of son Georges is reduced to the minimum.