AllMovie

Marcel Pagnol adapted the screenplay of Nais from a novel by Emile Zola. The usually mirth-provoking Fernandel plays it relatively straight as a hunchbacked itinerant worker. He loves Jacqueline Pagnol from afar, but is prevented by his handicap from expressing his ardor. Thus he vicariously romances Pagnol by smoothing the path of her relationship with a handsome villager. At the risk of sounding flippant: Nais is nice.