AllMovie

Jean Gabin stars as Noel, patriarch of a large and wealthy family of industrialists. Noel sees no reason not to run his home in the same ruthless, coldhearted manner in which he runs his business. "Black sheep" Lucien (Pierre Brasseur), however, sees Noel for the pompous fraud that he is. And it is Lucien who topples Noel's dictatorship in a climactic series of cutthroat maneuvers on the stock exchange. Based on actual people and events, Les Grandes Families concludes with the sort of profound tragedy that is merely the logical extension of "business as usual."