Société Française des Films Éclair

Early adaptation of a Sherlock Holmes story

Émile Durand, an insecticide manufacturer, is appalled to learn that his son Gérard has fallen in love with Suzy, the daughter of a travelling theatre company. Realising his father will never favour the union, Gérard joins the company on their next tour. In an attempt to heal the rift, Durand’s wife goes after Gérard and ends up performing in their next play…

In 1912 Jasset turned from fantasy and spectacle to realism in making the first of two Zola adaptations, as part of Éclair's new series of social dramas. For Au pays des ténèbres, based on Germinal, he took his crew to Charleroi in Belgium to film in authentic locations, and although he updated the story to the present, he went to great lengths to recreate in the studio the detail of the actual mining galleries, exploiting the ability of film to be a recorder of contemporary reality.

The film based on the novel of the same name by Alexandre Duma, is concerned with fraternal royal strife at the court of Henri III. Tragically caught between the millstones of history are the gallant Count de Bussy and the woman he adores, la Dame de Monsoreau.

The story of the children of Captain Grant.

Eugenie Grandet has discovered where her father, a miserable old miser, keeps his treasure. Eugenie's cousin, Charles, is the bearer of a letter from his father to his uncle, Eugenie's father. The letter informs the miser that Charles' father, his only brother, is reduced to a state of utter ruin, and unless he can obtain immediate help, he contemplates suicide.

A mother loses first her son and then her husband in the trenches of France during the First World War. She devotes herself to the French cause and to helping those wounded in the war.

A Nick Carter serial

Silent mystery

No plot available. The director Maurice Tourneur perceived this film to be indicative of the advances French cinema could have taken had it not been derailed by World War I.

The Twins, regular bad men of the regiment, have been condemned to the military prison, and it goes much against the grain of the kind-hearted Captain Hurluret to see these poor fellows confined to their cells. His leniency toward them, however, is speedily taken advantage of with most amusing results.

Short melodrama. Two former lovers meet twenty years later when the man has to compete with the son of the woman.

Émile Cohl produced independently an animated series titled "Les Aventures des Pieds Nickelés". There were four series of these produced, all released between 1917 and 1918.

Protéa is the last film directed by Victorin-Hippolyte Jasset, one of the early film pioneers in France. The hero of this film is a female spy, an acrobatic Mata-Hari, played by his favorite actress, Josette Andriot, who wore a characteristic costume of a close-fitting black jersey, two years before Musidora achieved cult status with her similar appearance as Irma Vep. This final masterpiece reflects Jasset's popular style: rhythmic action, fantastic realism, rich visuals, an anarchistic philosophy, a disdain for psychology, and an attention to lighting that earned him the nickname “the Rembrandt of the cinema". Although Jasset died shortly after completion, the film had considerable success and Andriot went on to make four more films in the series with other directors.

The story of "Jack" is well-known. It is a beautiful story of a natural child. His mother, Ida de Borancy, worships the dear little nameless and fatherless being whom she decides, as he is getting on in years, to place in a boarding school. The child's professor of literature is a certain Amaury D'Argenton, a failure of the faculty, and an uninspired poet. During one of her visits to the institution, Mme. de Borancy is attracted by D'Argenton, and falls in love with him. The "Ne'er-do-Well" soon gives up his starving position and makes his abode with her, exercising over her absolute control. He soon learns to hate little Jack and forces her to leave him permanently at school. The poor child, unaccustomed to the separation, runs away, only to find, when he arrives at his former home, that his mother has moved and is now living thirty miles away. He undertakes the journey on foot, and reaches his mother's house completely exhausted. Here he meets Dr. Rivals and his daughter, Cecil.

Over-stimulated by boxing lessons, Gavroche brings a lion home to spar with, triggering an all-out assault on public order.

Grandmother Hall, aged fast falling in health, is greatly comforted by her only two grandchildren, daughters of her own daughter long since past before. She has made a will in which she stipulates that Lawrence, her son, shall inherit her wealth providing he assumes the care of her grandchildren, and who are, of course, his nieces. She dies. Lawrence claims the estate and orders his nieces to get out and earn their own way. A second will is found, properly filed and recorded. It is read and they learn that it is a repudiation of the first will, should Lawrence fail to live up to the terms therein. Lawrence tries to break the will but fails and the estate is ordered delivered to the girls. The granddaughters kind-heartedly offer Lawrence a home with them.

Drama in which the love between Claude and Germaine is tested when Claude is falsely accused and Germaine's father doesn't approve of their relationship.

Hortense Fauvel, the wife of a village postmaster, takes Aimée, a young shepherdess, under her wing. Aimée soon becomes engaged to François, the Fauvel’s loyal servant. At a fête hosted by the Count of Granval, Aimée gives her fiancé a knife, telling him that he should kill her if ever she ceases to be faithful to him. That same day, the Count is planning to have an amorous liaison with Hortense, but Aimée intervenes. To save her mistress from a scandal, Aimée tells the postmaster that it is she, not Hortense, who has been seeing the Count. Disgraced, Aimée is dismissed by the postmaster. François contemplates his revenge and recalls what Aimée said to him.