User reviews

Plot: Danièle is in love with her childhood friend ,Jean ,who has just finished his studies and has become a doctor. As he was his best student,his former professor urges him to come back to Paris where later he would take over from him at the head of his hospital ...So he leaves his country for the broader horizons of the capital, encouraged by his mom who dreams of good prospects for her son; unfortunate Danièle comes to see him in his hospital but soon realizes that his occupation takes the best of him ; so she resigns herself to a marriage with the local squire's steward ,a wicked greedy man she does not love. Left alone with her children, her fortune stolen by her hateful husband, she tries to make her former love come back in a desperate way.....

A fair melodrama , saved by the cast ,particularly the supporting actors, Françoise Rosay as the over possessive mother and Marcel Herrand as the cynical steward ; Stelli's directing is academic and not very exciting ( the boar hunt and the "accident" notably); the medically undeserved rural era in France remains a hot topic ,but it's not the subject of the film.