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Marius (1931, Fr.)
In director Alexander Korda's romantic comedy, characterized
by the authentic-sounding vernacular dialect and rolling Southern
France accents, with a story adapted from Marcel Pagnol's 1929 stage
play; it was noted as the first installment of Marcel Pagnol's Fanny
(or Marseille) trilogy (followed by Fanny (1932) and Cesar
(1936)):
- the title character: restless and unfulfilled 22
year-old Marius (Pierre Fresnay) living in the port city of Marseille,
helping his doting and overbearing widowed father - bar owner Cesar
Olivier (Raimu); Marius had two conflicting loves:
(1) a troubled romance with 18 year-old childhood sweetheart Fanny
(Orane Demazi, scriptwriter Pagnol's wife), the daughter of the local
widowed fishmonger Honorine Cabanis (Alida Rouffe), who ran a shellfish
(cockles) concession, and
(2) Marius' adventurous and yearning desire to travel and sail away
("a madness for the sea") from his provincial community
- Marius' jealous dilemma when Fanny announced that
she would marry the 50 year-old recently-widowed Honoré Panisse
(Fernand Charpin), a lonely yet prosperous, local sailmaker
- the comic bridge card-game sequence (full of obvious
cheating, for instance: "You break my heart!"), starting
with four card players, including Cesar and cuckolding ferryboat
captain Félix Escartefigue (Paul Dullac), with the famous
accusatory quotes: "You'd treat an old school chum like a cheat?...If
friends can't cheat, why bother to play?", and
"The French Navy tells you to go to hell"
- in the highly-dramatic ending, the self-sacrificing
Fanny, who had become engaged to Marius but realized that he was
unhappy, encouraged him to leave on a ship for an extended expedition,
and then distracted his father while the sailing vessel was departing
from the Marseille harbor
Marius' Departure From Fanny
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Marius' Romance with Fanny
Marius with Father-Bar Owner Cesar Olivier
Bridge Card-Game
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