Fernand Charpin, best known for his role as Panisse in Pagnol's Fanny Trilogy, stars in this warm comedy as M. Chotard, small-town grocer. When his daughter falls in love with a poet, Chotard reluctantly brings him in to the trade, determined to make a merchant out of a dreamer. But it is Chotard who is transformed, into a lover of poetry-in fact, his business is going to ruin because everyone in town is reading novels and poems. Chotard and Co. is a "minor" Renoir, virtually forgotten and still dismissed by most critics. Raymond Durgnat in his book finds a place for it: "Summary and farcical, the film abounds in agreeable and even slightly touching moments. They recall Pagnol in their loving observation...but remain a little more flippant and fantastic....The poet who stands on the table in order to press his trousers with an ancient smoothing iron, and the obdurately prosaic couples at the Fancy Dress Ball, belong to warm and friendly farce. Renoir loves...a pretext for certain informal and disrespectful truths, the truths of derisive affection which, when comedy has a soul, is its soul and not its shallowness." Shown in French with a detailed written English synopsis.