Le val d'enfer

Gabriel Gabrio lives in a house by the quarry with his parents. He has disowned his son, who has gone to prison. When his best friend dies, Gabrio takes in his daughter, Ginette Leclerc, who has been living in irregular circumstances with a man who has abandoned her. As the days pass, his parents, Gabrielle Fontan and Édouard Delmont, see their son is in love, but he is too shy to say anything. His father talks him into proposing, and Mlle Leclerc accepts. But she isn't happy. She cuckolds her husband with the captain of a canal boat that carries the stones to Paris, and grows to detest her in-laws, who see everything, but urge their son to make his wife happy.

Maurice Tourneur's movie is, as you would expect, beautifully directed, with fine performances from all, filled with striking images of the countryside around the actual quarry With its strong subtext of anti-modernism and distrust of people who come form the cities, it must have pleased the censors of German-controlled France and the management of Continental Pictures, but seems unsubtle to a modern viewer.