Film Story Briefs

Since the era of "silent films," moving pictures are an important part of worldwide culture. How did movies get their start? What are the stories behind the movies? Enjoy hundreds of stories in this Collection.

Jean Valjean is the central character of Victor Hugo's ever-popular Les Miserables, but we don't really "meet him" until "Book Second" of Volume I.

Jean Valjean was imprisoned nineteen years - at hard labor - for breaking into a bakery, stealing a loaf of bread, then trying to escape from his life...

After the Bishop of Digne shows kindness to Jean Valjean, providing him with food and allowing him to spend the night without pay, Valjean steals the ...

In this audio clip, Carole Bos reads from Les Miserables, Volume I - Book Fifth ("The Descent") - Chapter VII (entitled "Fauchelevent Becomes a Garden...

In this audio clip, Carole Bos reads from Les Miserables, Volume I - Book Fifth ("The Descent") - Chapter XIII (entitled "The Solution of some Questio...

In this audio clip, Carole Bos reads from Les Miserables, Volume I - Book Sixth ("Javert") - Chapter I (entitled "The Beginning of Repose").

In this audio clip, Carole Bos reads from Les Miserables, Volume I - Book Sixth ("Javert") - Chapter II (entitled "How Jean May Become Champ").

President Thomas Jefferson asked one of his key aides, twenty-eight-year-old Meriwether Lewis, to lead an expedition west - all the way to the "wester...

Despite dreadful conditions and too-few horses, Lewis & Clark reach the Great Falls on June 13, 1805. Sacagawea soon makes a remarkable discovery, lea...

As the Corps of Discovery pushed forward, into the heart of the Great Plains, the explorers saw "little toy dogs.

With Shoshone horses and a Shoshone guide, Lewis and Clark forged ahead with their men.

Lewis Payne is arrested on April 17, 1865, three days after President Lincoln was shot. His fate is now sealed, after his attempted assassination of t...

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