Fernandel

Twenty-five years after rising to international acclaim in JEAN DE FLORETTE and MANON OF THE SPRING, Daniel Auteuil returns to the world of Marcel Pagnol for his directorial debut, a celebrated remake of the 1940s classic. Auteuil stars as the eponymous well-digger Pascal, a widower living with his six daughters in the Provence countryside at the start of World War I. His eldest, Patricia (the luminous Astrid Berges-Frisbey), has returned home from Paris to help raise her sisters, and Pascal dreams of marrying her off to his loyal friend Felipe (Kad Merad). But when she's impregnated by a wealthy young pilot (Nicolas Duvauchelle) who promptly abandons her for the frontlines, Pascale is left to contend with the consequences. An exquisitely crafted, sun-drenched melodrama, set to a score by Academy Award-nominee Alexandre Desplat (THE KING'S SPEECH), the film captures all the warmth and humanist spirit of Pagnol's original work.

Trailer for The Well Digger's Daughter. As she cuts across the fields to take her father his lunch, Patricia meets Jacques. She is eighteen, he is twenty-six. She is pretty, with the fine manners of a young lady; he is a fighter pilot and a handsome young man. A full moon will do the rest on their second meeting. There won't be a third rendezvous: Jacques is sent to the front. Patricia finds herself pregnant. The boy's rich parents accuse her of blackmail. Patricia and her father, the well-digger, will alone have the joy of welcoming her child. A joy that the Mazels will soon envy and seek to share when Jacques goes missing in action...

Around 1872, an English gentleman Phileas Fogg (David Niven) claims he can circumnavigate the world in eighty days. He makes a wager with several skeptical fellow members of his London gentlemen's club, the Reform Club, that he can arrive back within 80 days. Together with his resourceful valet, Passepartout (Mario Moreno 'Cantinflas'), Fogg sets out on his journey from Paris via a hot air balloon. Meanwhile, suspicion grows that Fogg has stolen 55,000 from the Bank of England so Police Inspector Fix (Robert Newton) is sent out by Ralph the bank president (Robert Morley) to trail and arrest Fogg. Hopscotching around the globe, Fogg pauses in Spain, where Passepartout engages in a comic bullfight. In India, Fogg and Passepartout rescue young widow Princess Aouda (Shirley MacLaine) from being forced into a funeral pyre with her late husband. The threesome visit Hong Kong, Japan, San Francisco, and the Wild West. Only hours short of winning his wager, Fogg is arrested upon returning to London, by the diligent yet misguided Inspector Fix. At the jail, the humiliated Fix informs Fogg that the real culprit was caught in Brighton. Though eventually exonerated of the charges, he has lost everything except the love of the winsome Aouda. But salvation is at hand when Passepartout realizes the next morning that, by crossing the International Date Line, they have gained a day. There is still time to reach the Reform Club and win the bet. To the surprise of all waiting at the club, Fogg arrives just before the clock's chime at 8:45 pm. Aouda and Passepartout then arrive. Noticing Fogg's whole travel party is here, Ralph announces the end of the journey.