What the Gods Decree

In the snow as bells toll, a hooded figure makes its way through the streets to a church.

A biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte, tracing the Corsican's career from his schooldays (where a snowball fight is staged like a military campaign) to his flight from Corsica, through the French Revolution (where a real storm is intercut with a political storm) and the Terror, culminating in his triumphant invasion of Italy in 1797.

A mother sells a photo of her daughter to the press for publicity, and a daughter suddenly dies leaving the mother desperate surrounding by portraits of her daughter all around town.

The story of two men, one married, the other the lover of the other's wife, who meet in the trenches of the First World War, and how their tale becomes a microcosm for the horrors of war.

French war propaganda in the form of a family drama in the German government. Nationalist sentiments severely test the young marriage between a French and a German. Directed by Henri Pouctal.

This relatively straightforward dramatic biography was one of two films commissioned to honor Joan of Arc on the 500th anniversary of her death, but it was soon undeservedly relegated to obscurity in favor of Carl Dreyer's triumphant 'La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc'. The comparison is unfair: Dreyer was an artist, but director Marco de Gastyne certainly proved himself a distinguished craftsman, and his emphasis on the Maid of Orléans early life in Domrémy serves as a picturesque, matching bookend to Dreyer's impassioned courtroom drama.

The story of the children of Captain Grant.

Luc Froment, a reform-minded engineer, starts working at a steel mill in a small town. There he founds small groups of workers (and their families) under miserable conditions. Under the influence of Fourier's ideas, Froment tries to turn the mill into a workers' co-operative.

The film tells the story of Frau Conch, a "fille perdue", a lost girl with no feelings or scruples, toying with men as she pleases. These are the kind of wicked girls that usually are invited to enjoy the soirées at the Schloss. She is without mercy, respect or loyalty.

Philibert Bretonneau signs novels which are actually written by Moluchet, his secretary, secretly in love with Bretonneau's charming wife, Pauline... One day, Jim la houlette, the king of thieves, resurfaces in France. He steals jewels from Madame Clisson, the wife of a lawyer. Saint-Lévy, Bretonneau's publisher, has an idea : to simulate the theft of a manuscript by Jim la houlette, in fact by Moluchet posing as the criminal. But Moluchet, confronted by the real Jim, lets him run away and is arrested...

Father-and-son lion tamers, Rabbas and Léo share a mistress - Rosita, the " lovely bitch " of the film's title. She is as wild as their lionesses and, in a single night the father is injured and the son attempts suicide. Only when Rosita leaves the circus can things get back to normal.

In 1912 Jasset turned from fantasy and spectacle to realism in making the first of two Zola adaptations, as part of Éclair's new series of social dramas. For Au pays des ténèbres, based on Germinal, he took his crew to Charleroi in Belgium to film in authentic locations, and although he updated the story to the present, he went to great lengths to recreate in the studio the detail of the actual mining galleries, exploiting the ability of film to be a recorder of contemporary reality.

A masked avenger and his mysterious female assistant are on a mission to punish individuals who have made their fortunes off ill-gotten gains.

"A charming story of a young society girl and the pathetic love of a youth..." Considered a lost film.

In 1913 early French film pioneer Victorin-Hippolyte Jasset died abruptly at the age of 51. His filmography of about 60 titles includes all film genres but is today mostly lost. He was particularly interested in detective or crime genres and with series like Nick Carter and Zigomar he is considered as one of the creators of the serial. The spectacular siege of Jules Bonnot's Gang at Choisy-le-Roi near Paris on April 28th 1912 inspired Jasset to make this 'Bandits en automobile'. French audiences recognized immediately the resemblances with the actual Bonnot Gang, a reason for which the film was prohibited in many cities.

A sensational detective story, founded on the romance of Leon Sazie. The noted criminal who terrorized all Europe is shown in these three Zigomar reels in a dramatic and intense struggle for supremacy with Paulin Broquet, the celebrated detective, who takes the two in the most varied and finest resorts.

Nick Carter, the famous detective, is ordered to prosecute the gang of Zigomar. Carter gets into various thorny situations but manages to escape every time, helped by Olga, a former girlfriend of Zigomar. Carter finally manages to trap Zigomar and Zigomar is arrested. However, Zigomar avoids going to court by apparently poisoning himself.