Mieczysław Gielniewski

A Polish silent film from 1922, it was the first adaptation of Stefan Żeromski's 1912 novel "The Faithful River." The film's central theme is the love story of Prince Odrowąż, a wounded insurgent, and Salomea, and the fateful intervention of the prince's mother. The plot is complemented by allegorical tableaux vivants by Artur Grottger from the "Polonia" and "Lithuania" series. The final scene depicts a group of veterans of the January Uprising in independent Poland.

In West Africa, Polish intelligence sergeant Milczek discovers the bandit Sheikh Abdullah’s desert stronghold but is captured until the sheikh’s wife, Jamila, secretly rescues him and follows him into safety. When Jamila sees Milczek with a European woman and believes he has betrayed her, she returns to warn her husband, prompting the bandits to lay a deadly ambush against the approaching French expedition.

Franka, a Warsaw prostitute, is wounded with a knife by a pimp. She ends up in the hospital, where the doctor caring for her, who wants to help her break with her past, offers her a job as a maid in the countryside. Desiring to forget the torments of her past life, the girl agrees. In the countryside she meets Pawel, a simple country boy whom she seduces. The infatuated Pawel, to whom Franka reveals her past, marries her. However, the monotonous rural life bores Franka, longing for a big-city life, and when Pawel leaves for a few days, she escapes with a man she meets casually to Warsaw, where she leads the life of a cabaret chansonist. After a few years she returns, bringing with her an illegitimate child. Pawel forgives her and takes her back under his roof. But this is not the end of Pawel's ordeal....

In occupied Silesia, resistance is organizing. In close contact with the miners and led by an engineer, a group of partisans prepare the sabotage of the steel combine. The going will be tough as the place is closely guarded by the Nazis. But despite a denunciation from a traitor and several violent deaths, they get going and the operation is a success. But the Red Army is approaching and now the coal production must not be sabotaged anymore. On the contrary, the partisans must prevent the Germans from destroying the steel mill and the coal mine...