Les belles histoires des pays d'en haut (1956)

-A historical soap opera set in Quebec's Laurentides (in Canada) in the late 19th century. In the growing settlement of Sainte-Adèle, a love triangle involving Séraphin Poudrier, the powerful but conniving and miserly mayor, Donalda Laloge-Poudrier, the woman forced into marrying him as payment for a family debt, and Alexis Labranche, the beau with whom she shares a deep love, quickly becomes a square once you include families and villagers, themselves facing their own daily dramas. One of the longest-running TV series in Canadian history, and one with considerable cultural importance as it pioneered the téléroman format (Quebec's version of "soap opera") and gave French-Canadians a set of idioms that marked generations, including its own version of "Scrooge" and all related expressions, like "You're nothing but a Séraphin" (T'es rien qu'un Séraphin). The series was written by Claude-Henri Grignon as an adaptation expanding on his own 1933 novel, "Un Homme et son péché" (lit. trans. "A man and his sin"). It features a vast ensemble cast and interweaves several plots, including several actual historical figures, as it strays beyond the story's principle love yarn to depict life in the early settlements of the region.