Most critics consider The Baker's Wife the greatest film of Marcel Pagnol, the dramatist of the Provence - whose humor, compassion, and neo-pagan philosophy are embodied in a host of memorable characters and expressed through archetypal tragi-comic situations from the daily life of the village and waterfront communities of Pagnol's native region. The Baker's Wife is largely a vehicle for the great Raimu (who played Cesar in the Fanny trilogy), whose performance justifies Orson Welles' succinct estimate that “Raimu is the greatest actor in the world.” A classic of cuckoldry as powerful and poignant as The Blue Angel or The Naked Night, The Baker's Wife is also a profoundly warm and funny comedy.