Les grandes familles

Jean Gabin (Noël Schoudler) is like a family-president in this movie by Denys de La Patellière based on a novel by Maurice Druon. His son François (Jean Desailly) is not competent to direct the family-business (a sugar factory), the banks, the press-company, or is he? At his opposite Simon, his future son-in-law (Bernard Blier) is the right hand of Schoudler and acts as Schoudler supposes an intelligent man does. At the end of the movie Lucien Maublanc, the nephew of Schoudler and driven by 20-years hate of him (Lucien is played by a magnificent Pierre Brasseur) shouts at his brokers in the Stock Exchange: "C'est bien la famille!". Schoudler will make a mistake of judgment about his son with fatal consequences... This family-tragedy is told with the skill of a director who knows how to bring a novel into a movie.