Marius (1931) is the first film in Marcel Pagnol's trilogy about denizens of the Marseilles waterfront. The films were based on Pagnol's very successful plays Marius (1929) and Fanny (1931), which were huge hits on the Paris stage. (The third film, Cesar, which looks at the characters twenty years later, was made in 1936, and the 1946 stage version was actually based on the film, instead of vice-versa.)

Marius, the son of a bar owner, fights his attraction to Fanny, the daughter of a seafood vendor, because marrying her would mean the end to his dream of going to sea. Fanny is courted by Panisse, an older, well-to-do merchant who is a friend of Marius's father Cesar, but she refuses him because she's in love with Marius. When Marius's efforts to get a job on a ship are unsuccessful, he at last turns to Fanny, and they are happy for a while. But then another job on a ship becomes available. Will Fanny hold him, or is the lure of the sea stronger? A simple plot summary can't really do justice to Marius or the other films in the trilogy, which are rich in character and detail, full of poignancy, humor, everyday life, and delightful performances by what would become Pagnol's stock company of character actors.

Pagnol had sold the film rights to his play to Paramount's French division, but had retained approval of the film adaptation. Marius would be the first film version of Pagnol's work, and Pagnol himself was writing the screenplay. Determined to preserve the integrity of his play, he was proving to be difficult to work with, so studio head Robert Kane decided to hand the job of directing to a new arrival, Alexander Korda.

Korda had begun his career in his native Hungary, and had risen to become one of the nation's top directors during World War I. Forced to leave Hungary during political upheaval in the aftermath of the war, Korda arrived in Vienna penniless, and began rebuilding his career. His next stop was Berlin, then Hollywood in 1927. He did well at first, but after the coming of sound his career declined, and he returned to Europe, landing a job at Paramount's Paris studios directing the German versions of French films.

Korda was very supportive of Pagnol, agreeing to use the original cast of the stage production, and keeping the regional accents that defined the characters. Korda did not like the sets, which did not look like they belonged in Marseilles, and recruited his brother Vincent, an artist living in the south of France, to create new ones that looked more like the region he knew well. It was the beginning of Vincent Korda's career as a motion picture art director. Alexander Korda not only shot Marius quickly, he also shot it again, just as quickly, in a German version, with a German cast. Marius was a hit, and Kane was so impressed with Korda's work that he offered him the job of running Paramount's British studios. Korda moved to London, and soon established his own studio, London Films, launching his long and successful career as an independent producer.

The success of Marius also paved the way for Pagnol's cinematic career. He set up his own production company, and its premiere film was Fanny (1932), the sequel to Marius. Once again, Pagnol wrote and produced, but did not direct the film, leaving that role to Marc Allegret. By the time he made Cesar in 1936, Pagnol had been directing for two years, and he directed that film as well. In 1946, Pagnol became the first filmmaker to be elected to the Academie Francaise. His work was considered old-fashioned by some of the French New Wave filmmakers of the 1960s, but earned new appreciation in later years, with the remakes of some of his films, and adaptations of his novels and memoirs, such as Claude Berri's 1986 Manon of the Spring and Jean de Florette, and Yves Robert's 1990 My Mother's Castle and My Father's Glory.

But it is the Marseilles trilogy, one of French cinema's best-loved masterpieces, that has become the most enduring of Pagnol's work. MGM's version, Port of Seven Seas (1938), was directed by James Whale, written by Preston Sturges, and starred Wallace Beery as Cesar, Frank Morgan as Panisse, and Maureen O'Sullivan as Fanny (renamed Madelon). It is rarely seen because of legal issues.

A 1954 Broadway musical, Fanny, compressed all three stories into one, and starred Ezio Pinza, Walter Slezak, and a young Florence Henderson in the title role. It was directed by Joshua Logan, who also directed the 1959 film version. It starred Leslie Caron and Horst Buchholz as the lovers, and Charles Boyer and Maurice Chevalier as the elders. The film used Harold Rome's music from the stage musical as background only, and was otherwise a straight dramatic film with no songs. In France, the trilogy has been remade several times for French television, most recently in 2000; and a stage version of the combined stories, titled Caesar, Fanny, Marius opened in Paris in February of 2009. All of these adaptations had their charms, but for many film lovers, nothing compares with the original trilogy.

Director: Alexander Korda
Producer: Marcel Pagnol, Robert T. Kane
Screenplay: Marcel Pagnol, based on his play
Cinematography: Theodore J. Pahle
Editor: Roger Spiri-Mercanton
Production Design: Alfred Junge, Vincent Korda
Music: Francis Gromon
Principal Cast: Raimu (Cesar), Pierre Fresnay (Marius), Orane Demazis (Fanny), Fernand Charpin (Honore Panisse), Alida Rouffe (Honorine), Paul Dullac (Escartefigue) Alexandre Mihalesco (Piquoiseau).
BW-130m. Closed captioning.

by Margarita Landazuri