Paul Mahalin / Xavier Montepin
Frank J. Morlock has assembled here three lurid plays of sordid murders and implacable vengeance: In The Lemonade Girl (1894) a wealthy elderly woman is strangled for her valuables. An innocent man is arrested and later guillotined. His daughter, the eponymous “Lemonade Girl,” swears to unmask the real assassin. She is assisted in her mission by the most notorious detective of the times, the once-convict turned Sûreté enforcer: Vidocq!Polichinelle (1887) stars a man framed for a double murder by his unfaithful wife and her lover, then sent to rot as a galley slave at the hard labor camp in Brest. But thanks to another convict nicknamed “Polichinelle,” because of his hunched back, he simulates death, escapes, acquires a fortune and returns to Paris, intent on wreaking his revenge on the evil couple.The Bread Peddler (1889), based on a best-selling novel, and adapted several times for film and television, is the tale of an unfortunate woman convicted for the murder of her employer, then locked in an asylum, while her young children are raised by others, unaware of her plight. She escapes and, disguised as one of Paris’ many “bread peddlers,” plans to expose the real assassin, a spurned would be-lover now turned wealthy industrialist.
