Michèle Cordoue

Life in a small Mexican village where joy and misery, hope and pain, passion and guilt, love and decay, life and death are mixed in the peasants life and two French citizens who end up stranded in there, during a typhoid epidemic.

The film follows the life of Napoleon from his early life in Corsica to his death at Saint Helena. The film is notable for its use of location shooting for numerous scenes, especially at the French estates of Malmaison and Fontainebleau, the Palace of Versailles, and sites of Napoleonic battles including Austerlitz and Waterloo.

Pacos Le Maltais, leader of a gang, lays down the law on the quay of Marseille. He fires one of his henchmen, Le Chinois, who killed a woman during the last bank stickup.

A bossy count has trouble marrying off any of his six sons. When one of them, Adam, finally makes wedding arrangements, something happens to his bride to be: she develops amnesia after an accident.

Dismissed from the railroads in 1863 for his union activities, Etienne Lantier found a job at the Voreux coal mine. But work was hard, wages were low and safety left much to be desired. Lantier tried to organize the miners into a union. When mine manager Hennebeau refused to negotiate, the workers launched a general strike, which ended with the intervention of the troops.

Celestin works as an organist at a girl's school. By day, Celestin is the meek and mild target of the girls' incessant practical jokes. By night, however, he is the celebrated composer of popular operas -- and the romantic vis-à-vis of a celebrated stage star. When schoolgirl Denise stumbles onto Celestin's secret, she threatens to tell all -- but only if Celestin refuses to escort her to the opening night of his latest opera. As a result, Denise falls in love with a handsome young soldier, while Celestin is accidentally shipped off to an army camp. A series of silly coincidences brings happiness to all concerned by fade-out time.

Raven, a mobster just released from prison, settles the score by murdering Mendetta and her partner, who had turned him in. Having taken over Mendetta's various bars, he finds himself at war with other mobsters who want to kill him.

Ireland, 1922. In the midst of a national uprising, Catherine, a young orphan employed in household chores, goes in search of her brother whom she has heard in a dream calling for help.

Philippe Perrin, a young engineer passionate about his work, leads the construction of a huge dam in the High Alps. Like all the men who work on the building site, he gives the best part of himself. Unfortunately, his health deteriorates but he refuses to follow the doctor's orders as well as the advice of Micheline, a young nurse who has fallen in love with him. However, driven by the evolution of his illness, Philippe finally makes up his mind to go down to the valley for a treatment. On the very day of his departure though, a young Arab worker gets killed in a rock crusher...

In Vendée, a little boy, Paul Guillet, is abandoned by his mother who places him in public assistance. He will go from host family to host family, these various experiences gradually shaping his personality. Graine d'ortie is a French television series in twenty-six thirteen-minute episodes, broadcast from June 1, 1973 on the first ORTF channel. It is also the title of the autobiographical novel by Paul Wagner from which the television series is inspired. In Quebec, it was broadcast from September 1, 1974 on Télévision de Radio-Canada, and rebroadcast from December 14, 1986 on TVJQ.