Pagnol's most important work, for which he left Marseilles to shoot in the hilltowns of Provence. Fanny introduced us to Orane Demazis but Angèle is her pièce de résistance. It's about a farmgirl whose résistance is low to a city slicker who, unbeknownst only to her, plans to set her up as a prostitute in Marseilles. She is rescued from the life by the kindly farmhand Saturnin (Fernandel, cast against type for his finest role). "Friendship cleans all," but this cannot save her from family; with her baby Angèle is kept locked away like a dirty secret. When she emerges from capture into the harsh provençal light, it is thanks to the amour fou of a young mountain man and the good will and grace of his fellow itinerant worker Amadée, perhaps the most noble of all Pagnol savages. Pagnol's film also is saved from its melodramatic premise by love, of the land on which it is filmed, the much-traveled roads, the creaking windmills, the peasant farmhouse with its big kitchen table, to be seated at which marks one's acceptance as a member of the human race.