The best Mag-Avril’s drama movies

Victor Hugo's monumental novel Les Miserables has been filmed so often that sometimes it's hard to tell one version from another. One of the best and most faithful adaptations is this 240-minute French production, starring Jean Gabin as the beleaguered Jean Valjean. Arrested for a petty crime, Valjean spends years 20 in the brutal French penal system. Even upon his release, his trail is dogged by relentless Inspector Javert (Bernard Blier). Valjean's efforts to create a new life for himself despite the omnipresence of Javert is meticulously detailed in this film, which utilizes several episodes from the Hugo original that had hitherto never been dramatized. Originally released as a single film, Les Miserables was usually offered as a two parter outside of France.

Le Cas Du Dr. Laurent (The Case of Dr. Laurent) stars Jean Gabin as a Paris-based doctor who tries to spread the gospel of Natural Childbirth. Working in a cloistered rural community, Gabin runs up against the stone walls of fear and prejudice. His theories are proven sound when unwed mother Nicole Courcel gives birth within Gabin's methodology. The childbirth sequence is filmed straight-on with a delicate combination of taste and frankness. Nonetheless, the lurid ad campaign of Cas Du Dr. Laurent sensationalized this sequence all out of proportion.

Once upon a time there lived in the same village two men bearing the very same name. One of them chanced to possess four horses, the other had only one horse, so, by way of distinguishing them from each other, the proprietor of four horses was called "Great Claus," and he who owned but one horse was known as "Little Claus"...