Summary
A horse dealer is making his way across the Cévennes mountains
in a snowstorm when he is suddenly attacked by a stranger. His
assailant is Jean-Baptiste, a reclusive man known locally as the
Bellman. Having killed the horse dealer, Jean-Baptiste flees with
his gold. He intends to share these ill-gotten gains with Fabret,
a simpleminded old man whose daughter he has taken a fancy to. In
fact, Fabret’s daughter, Catherine, is in love with another man, a
woodcutter named Peter. When the horse merchant’s corpse is
discovered, the villagers suspect that he was killed by Fabret and
organise a lynch mob. Pierre comes to the aid of the old man,
only to learn that Jean-Baptiste has fled with Catherine...
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- The best 100 French films
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Related links
- Other French films of the 1940s
- The best French films of the 1940s
- Other French dramas
- The best French dramas
- Biography and films of Christian-Jaque
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Credits
- Director: Christian-Jaque
- Script: Claude Boncompain (novel), Christian-Jaque, Jacques Prévert, Jacques Prévert
- Photo: Louis Page
- Music: Henri Verdun
- Cast: Lucien Coëdel (Jean-Baptiste, le campanier), Fernand Ledoux (Fabret, le ’lièvre’), Renée Faure (Catherine Fabret), Madeleine Robinson (Marthe), Roger Pigaut (Pierre), Georges Tourreil (Le brigadier), Pierre Labry (L’idiot du village), Jacques Butin, Léonce Corne (Le cordonnier), Léon Larive, Marcel Pérès, Michel Piccoli (Un villageois), Sinoël (La grand-mère)
- Country: France
- Language: French
- Runtime: 100 min; B&W
- Aka: The Bellman
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Crime / Drama






