betrayed and angry. Fanny goes to Panisse. On his deathbed, Panisse dictates a letter asking Marius to marry Fanny and be a father to Césario. His only request is that the boy keep the last name, Panisse. Cast Production Several versions of the Pagnol works had been filmed prior to this adaptation. The original film trilogy in French was directed by Alexander Korda (Marius, 1931), Marc Allégret (Fanny, 1932) and Pagnol himself (César, 1936). There was a 1933 Italian film named Fanny, the 1934 German film Der Schwarze Walfisch ("The Black Whale"), and Port of Seven Seas, a 1938 American film directed by James Whale, also based on the trilogy. Jack L. Warner purchased the screen rights to the stage musical, but believing that the popularity of musical films was on the wane, he decided to eliminate the songs. West Side Story, released the same year as Fanny, proved to be a box office success. The production did benefit significantly from the decision: Charles Boyer, who had refused the role when it involved singing because he would neither sing nor allow his voice to be dubbed, gladly accepted when that was no longer necessary. Boyer and Chevalier, who were old friends, were delighted to be able to work together, at last. Before the picture's release, art house theater owners booked the original films, promoting the showings as the last opportunity to see them before the new picture came out. In fact, Warner's acquisition of the screen rights removed the films from circulation for decades. Plans for the original title, Joshua Logan's Fanny, were scrapped when reporters pointed out the double meaning. Screenwriter Julius J. Epstein had collaborated with Joshua Logan on Tall Story the previous year, but he initially declined the director's offer to adapt Fanny for the screen, because he found it difficult to believe Marius' motivation for leaving Marseille. He accepted the assignment after Logan found a solution in Marius' relationship with his father. Epstein relied on Pagnol's plays for inspiration, but retained the ending of the musical, which was quite different from the plot of Pagnol's original film, César. Some scenes and dialogue are taken directly from the 1938 film. Prior to Warner's decision to film the property as a straight drama, Logan had offered Charles Boyer the role of César but the actor declined because he felt he could not sing and was unwilling to lip