The best Fernandel’s drama movies

Antoine and Marie decided to introduce their parents before the wedding. Summer vacation looks like a good time, so the Lartigue family prepares to host Malhouin family. But it turns out that the harsh Emil Malhouin is not too happy to get acquainted with his future relatives...

In the 30s, a small village in the Provence is losing its inhabitants because young people prefer to go to the city to find easy jobs and escape from being farmers living in relative poverty. Only a few old people and the poacher Panturle remain. Panturle dreams of bringing the village back to life, finding a wife, founding a family and work as a farmer. One day, the village is visited by a traveling knife-grinder, Urbain Gedemus and a young woman, Arsule. Gedemus treats Arsule like a slave, but Arsule accept this because she has nowhere to go and -we guess- her 'work' with Gedemus is the last thing that saves her from being a prostitute. When she meets Panturle and knows about his dreams, she escapes from Gedemus and decides to stay with him. Together, they start a new life, made of hard farming work but mostly of happiness to have each other - fulfilling the earlier dreams of Panturle. Can anything break the happiness of their new life?

An employee at a jewelry store falls in love with a woman who secretly plans to rob the store.

Jules is a shepherd who lives a humble and solitary life in rural Provence. From time to time, he is visited by a lonely widow, Fine, who longs to be his wife. One day, Jules comes across an unexploded bomb lying on the ground in open countryside. After a few foolhardy attempts to set the bomb off, Jules makes a surprising discovery. It is filled with thousands of bank notes…

A man assists his gravely ill wife to die and wants to face justice for this, but his brothers try everything to keep the family's name clean.

After the death of her husband, Christine realizes she has possibly wasted her life by marrying him instead of the man towards whom, in her youth, she had a stronger inclination. To overcome these dreary thoughts, she decides to find out about him and the other men who danced with her during a ball that was a turning point in her life, many years ago. She pays a visit to those forgotten acquaintances one after the other; Christine is not only surprised to see how they have fared, but also discovers the impact she had, unknowingly, on the feelings and the destiny of these persons.

The Provence, somewhere in the 1950's. Paul Verdier, traveling salesman, leaves his home and his quarrelsome wife for his weekly round. On the train he meets a young woman, Marie, who looks a little lost. No wonder. Marie is pregnant but lacks the customary husband. She's returning to her village but is not exactly looking forward to the confrontation with her parents and the villagers, all pretty conservative people. After getting to know Paul a little better (for which there is ample time during the trip by train and bus) Marie decides to ask Paul to act as her husband, just to allay the suspicions of her family. After some hesitating Paul accepts, charmed by the girl and unaware of the complications such is bound to cause to his own life.

Angèle is a 1934 French drama film directed, produced and written by Marcel Pagnol. It stars Orane Demazis as a naive young woman who is seduced and abandoned. It is based on the novel Un de Baumugnes by Jean Giono.

A rural maiden's two suitors go off to war, leaving her pregnant.

A one-night stand with an entertainer threatens to destroy a woman's marriage after she gives birth to a black child.

Toine, the local hunchback, works at the tile manufacturing plant, but during the summer, he gives a hand to Micoulin, the farmer, thereby being able to spend more time close to Nais, Micoulin's daughter. That summer, the estate owner's son, Frederic Rostaing, decides to rest on the farm during his vacation from Law school. But his real motives are to seduce young Nais, whom he knows from their childhood days, after having seen her in town. Who will win the power struggle between the possessive father, the naive daughter, the vile student and the golden-hearted cripple?

Fernandel plays Albert, the unhappy brunt of jokes by his fellow office-workers who goes from the frying pan into the fire. Albert gets caught up in a robbery that also goes from bad to worse when it leads to several murders. Although he is not a killer and essentially innocent, there does not seem to be very much that Albert can do to convince others of the truth.