Jacques Copeau
La Venus D'Or (Golden Venus) was based on Business, a play by Pierre Sabatier. Mirielle Balin stars as Judith, the mistress of ruthless oil magnate Harfstrong (Jacques Copeau). What Harfstrong doesn't know is that Judith is a spy for his hated business rival. When he does find out, he cannot get rid of her because she knows too much about his own crooked dealings. After several more reels of mutual betrayal and recriminations, the story suddenly shifts to the "good" characters, clean-limned young pilot Andre (Daniel Lecourtois) and his sweetheart Michelle (Andree Giuze). Set up as a fall guy for the villains, Andre somehow emerges from the experience none the worse for wear.
Unhappy with her humdrum life as a provincial schoolteacher, Audrey Greenwood marries Major Carter, an officer in the British Army whom she does not love. Not long after the wedding Carter is on his way to Malaysia, accompanied by his wife, to take up a post in the British colony. During the long sea voyage, Audrey becomes acquainted with the handsome Prince Selim, the heir to the Malaysian throne. Life in the province of Malacca soon proves disagreeable to the free-spirited Englishwoman and she becomes a social outcast when her amorous affair with the prince is discovered.
Political turmoil convulses 19th-century Russia as Razumov, a young student preparing for a career in the czarist bureaucracy, unwittingly becomes embroiled in the assassination of a public official.
