Franz Schubert retired from Vienna in country for musical writing. He draws his inspiration from a romance with the watermiller's daughter. An operetta in the fifties Vienna style. This is the only movie from Marcel Pagnol in color and the only movie in rouxcolor, a French experimental process derivated from the agfacolor German process.
A Corsican fisherman is the victim of a vendetta, when he was wrong to date the niece of a businessman proposing to create a seaside resort, much to the anger of the islanders.
In the French Basque Country, Ramon, the son of a farmer and fruit and vegetable merchant with a beautiful voice, has the good life. He is engaged to his charming cousin Maria. But his daily life is called into question when, during a fight, he believes he has killed a bad boy. He flees to Algeria where, with a friend, he joins the Saharan Pioneers.