| The Bread Peddler | |
| Director: | Maurice Cloche |
| Producer: | Livio Panarelli |
| Starring: | Vivi Gioi Philippe Lemaire Jean Tissier |
| Music: | Ettore Montanaro |
| Cinematography: | Carlo Montuori |
| Editing: | Renée Gary |
| Studio: | Excelsa Film Omnium International du Film |
| Distributor: | Minerva Film |
| Runtime: | 98 minutes |
| Country: | France Italy |
| Language: | Italian |
The Bread Peddler (French: La porteuse de pain, Italian: La portatrice di pane) is a 1950 French-Italian historical drama film directed by Maurice Cloche and starring Vivi Gioi, Philippe Lemaire and Jean Tissier. It is an adaptation of the novel The Bread Peddler by Xavier de Montépin.[1] It was made at the Cinecittà Studios in Rome.
France, 1860. In Alfortville, a town near Paris, Eng. Labroue has founded a mechanical workshop where his inventions are exploited. The engineer is assisted in his work by the chief engineer Jacques Garaud, intelligent and ambitious. Jacques Garaud has an unrequited love for Jeanne Fortier, a young widow doorkeeper in the garage; Jeanne is the mother of two children: Georges, who lives with her mother, and Lucie, entrusted to a nurse. Jeanne, surprised by Eng. Labroue to light an oil lamp, an operation prohibited due to the risk of fires, is fired. Jacques Garaud plans to get rich by stealing the plans for a new machine designed by Eng. Labroue. Surprised by his master during the theft, Jacques kills him with a knife, sets fire to the workshop, makes believe that the fire was started by Jeanne and that he died charred. Jeanne is sentenced to life imprisonment and separated from her children.
In 1880 Jeanne escapes, goes to Paris, where she will work as a bread carrier calling herself Lise Perrin. Meanwhile, her two children are also in Paris, but both of them ignore their true identity: Georges, adopted by the painter Castel, has become a lawyer, Lucie is a seamstress. Jacques Garaud is also in Paris who, after assuming the identity of Paul Harmant and being widowed by a wealthy American, is now the owner of a factory run by Lucien Labroue, the son of Eng. Labroue assassinated in his time by Garaud. Garaud/Harmant has a cardiopathic daughter, Mary, who is in love with the young Lucien Labroue. Georges reconstructs his mother's legal case. Jacques Garaud is unmasked, daughter Mary dies of grief, Jeanne is finally reunited with her children, Lucie will marry Lucien Labroue.