Les Misérables

In nineteenth-century France, a former convict named Jean Valjean rebuilds his life under a new identity, but the police inspector Javert refuses to let him escape his past. Their long pursuit shapes both men's lives, and it eventually carries Valjean into the middle of a student uprising in Paris. The story follows Valjean from his release from the prison hulks, through the kindness shown to him by a bishop, to his efforts to protect the orphaned Cosette and the people he comes to care about. The film adapts Victor Hugo's novel.

Henri Fescourt directed this French silent production, which runs nearly six hours, and wrote the screenplay with Arthur Bernède. Fescourt's other credited directing work listed here is Monte Cristo, made four years later. Gabriel Gabrio plays Jean Valjean, with Jean Toulout as Javert, Sandra Milovanoff as Fantine and Cosette, Paul Jorge as Monseigneur Myriel, François Rozet as Marius and Charles Badiole as Gavroche. It was produced by Société des Cinéromans.

The film was released in November 1925, in the silent era, when French serial productions often ran at great length. It is one of several screen versions of Hugo's novel made in that period, distinguished by its scale and its close attention to the book's plot.