Rocambole

Now outstripped by Arsène Lupin,Rocambole was an adventurer whose adventures were so popular it gave to the French language a new adjective:rocambolesque(=incredible).Ponson du Terrail,his creator ,belongs to the serialised novels writers such as Eugène Sue (whose "mysteries of Paris" Baroncelli transferred to the screen too) or Adolphe D'Ennery (whose "les deux orphelines "was transferred to the screen by DW Griffith as "orphans in the storm").

This is melodrama in all its splendor,but definitely non tear-jerker melodrama.Rocambole's adventures are extravagant to a fault.Characters appear and disappear and it's a wonder the screenplay still makes some sense:identity usurpation,a subject which Maurice Leblanc (Arsène Lupin) and later Patricia Highsmith (Ripley) would dramatically improve,chastised innocents,secret passages...

The film was recently restored to good results.It has a sequel "la revanche de Baccarat"(1948) with the same cast.