Alternative ending where Sigurd Framrus (Pierre Renoir) dies and is buried by the two lovers (Jean Chevrier and Mila Parély) was written by Jean-Paul Sartre but never filmed (imdb).Not true,by the way.
Why on earth did the writer have to get involved in that business?That this poor flick was given two stars (out of four) by the French Guide Des Films is beyond me.The script is awful,Pierre Renoir overplays so much he is almost unbearable,and the plot looks like a poor man's Zola's "Germinal" ,gold replacing coal.
This is a story of a man exploiting a gold mine in a doomed place called "Tornavara" .His miners often rebel ,to no avail.He's married to a girl who of course could be his daughter.Up comes a handsome young man,Gerard Morhange .You can imagine what comes next.
The summary given by the "Guide Des Films" is not necessarily accurate: the wife does not stay with her husband;this is Sartre's ending (which WAS thus filmed )which is used in the copy I own .Maybe the other ending (the husband does not die and the woman stays with him) was shown in the theaters in 1943,since it was more in accordance with the Vichy ideology.
