In the fourth film by Jean Epstein (The Fall of the House of Usher, Mauprat), good triumphs over evil in this melodrama set against the backdrop of the Marseille docks. A young orphan, Marie (Gina Manès, Napoleon), suffers great hardships throughout her life starting when she’s adopted by an exploitative bar owner. Marie grows up to work for the man as a servant in his tavern and as a barmaid, she’s chased after by the worthless lay about, Petit Paul. She eventually marries Paul even though she is secretly in love with kind dockworker, Jean. Originally a film theorist and author, Epstein set out to direct films as a way to explore the ideas he’d put to paper. With Coeur Fidèle, he set out to create, a melodrama, “so stripped of all the conventions ordinarily attached to the genre, so sober, so simple, that it might approach the nobility and excellence of tragedy.”