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After 19 years on the chain gang, Jean Valjean finds that the ticket-of-leave he
must display condemns him to be an outcast. Only the Bishop of Digne treats him
kindly and Valjean, embittered by years of hardship, repays him by stealing some
silver. Valjean is caught and brought back by the police and is astonished when
the Bishop lies to the police to save him. Valjean decides to start his life
anew.
Eight years have passed and Valjean, having broken his parole and changed his
name to Monsieur Madeleine, has become a factory owner and Mayor. One of his
workers, Fantine, has a secret illegitimate child. When the other women discover
this, they demand her dismissal. Desperate for money to pay for medicines for
her daughter, Fantine, sells her locket, her hair, and then joins the whores in
selling herself. Utterly degraded, she gets into a fight with a prospective
customer and is about to be taken to prison by Javert, a police officer, when "The Mayor" arrives
and demands she be taken to hospital instead. The Mayor then rescues a man
pinned beneath a cart. Javert is reminded of the abnormal strength of convict
24601 Jean Valjean, who, he says, has just been recaptured. Valjean unable to
see an innocent man go to prison, confesses that he is prisoner 24601. At the
hospital, Valjean promises the dying Fantine to find and look after her
daughter, Cosette. Javert arrives to arrest him, but Valjean escapes.
Cosette has been lodged with the Thenardiers, who horribly abuse her while indulging
their own daughter, Eponine. Valjean pays the Thenardiers to let him take Cosette
away to Paris.
Nine years later, there is unrest in the city because of the likely demise of the popular leader General Lamarque,
the only man left in the Government who shows any feeling for the poor. A street-gang led by Thenardier
and his wife sets upon Valjean and Cosette. They are rescued by Javert, who
does not recognise Valjean until he has gone. The Thenardiers' daughter Eponine,
who is secretly in love with the student Marius, reluctantly agrees to help him find Cosette, with
whom he has fallen in love. News of General Lamarque's death circulates in the city and a group of politically minded students
stream out into the streets to whip up support for a revolution.
Cosette is consumed by thoughts of Marius, with whom she has fallen in love.
Eponine brings Marius to Cosette and she prevents an attempt by her father's gang to
rob Valjean's house. Valjean, convinced it was Javert lurking outside his house, tells
Cosette they must prepare to flee the country.
The students prepare to build the barricade. Marius, noticing that Eponine has joined the insurrection,
sends her away with a letter to Cosette, which is intercepted by Valjean.
Eponine decides to rejoin her love at the barricade. The barricade is built and the
revolutionaries defy an army warning to give up or die. Javert is exposed as a police spy. In
trying to return to the barricade, Eponine is killed.
Valjean arrives at the barricade in search of Marius. He is given the chance to kill
Javert but instead lets him go. The students settle down for the night on the barricade
and in the quiet of the night, Valjean prays to God to save Marius. The
next day the rebels are all killed. Valjean escapes into the sewers with the unconscious
Marius. After meeting Thenardier, who is robbing the corpses of the rebels,
he comes across Javert once more. He pleads for time to deliver the young man to
hospital. Javert lets Valjean go and, his unbending principles of justice having been
shattered by Valjean's own mercy, he kills himself. Unaware of the identity of his rescuer,
Marius recovers in Cosette's care. Valjean confesses the truth of his past to
Marius and insists he must go away.
At Marius and Cosette's wedding, the Thenardiers try to blackmail
Marius. Thenardier says Cosette's "father" is a murderer and as
proof produces a ring which he stole from the corpse the night the barricade fell. It is
Marius' own ring and he realises it was Valjean who rescued him that night.
He and Cosette go to Valjean where Cosette learns for the first time
her own history before the old man dies.
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"Janine" Productions