The Spirit of Sidi-Brahim
1939 film directed by Marc Didier
The Spirit of Sidi-Brahim (French: L'esprit de Sidi-Brahim) is a 1939 French spy drama film directed by Marc Didier and starring René Dary, Colette Darfeuil and Abel Jacquin. It was shot at the Cité Elgé Studios in Paris and on location around Savoy. The film's sets were designed by the art director Aimé Bazin. It premiered in Nice in December 1939 but wasn't given a Paris premiere and nationwide release until 1945 following the Liberation and is often dated by that year. The title is a reference to the 1845 Battle of Sidi Brahim in which the French light infantry distinguished themselves. It is also known by the alternative titles Sidi-Brahim or Les diables bleus.
Synopsis
An officer of the Chasseurs Alpins commanding a fort in the French Alps close to its border, assists a young woman who has been stopped by an avalanche and offers her shelter. He falls in love with her, but she is an enemy agent tasked with stealing a vital document. Having tricked him and made off with the secret, he is accused of treason and faces a court martial and firing squad.
Cast
René Dary as Jean Varin
Colette Darfeuil as Jane Simon
Abel Jacquin as Le commandant
Raymond Aimos as l'adjudant Brochard
Camille Bert
Henri Bosc
Robert Didry
Philippe Janvier
Jean Marconi
Yvonne Rozille
References
Bibliography
Bessy, Maurice & Chirat, Raymond.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “The Spirit of Sidi-Brahim” is 1939 film directed by Marc Didier. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Spirit, Sidi-Brahim and film, not as a finished interpretation.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q48755931. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1939, 1945 and 1845.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Spirit of Sidi-Brahim” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.