Manon of the Spring

Upon realizing that his initial cut was over four hours long, Marcel Pagnol decided to split the film into two. However distributor Gaumont was against the idea and Pagnol eventually conceded, leading the film to be released theatrically with a running time of around two hours, which Pagnol was very dissatisfied with. In March 1968, French TV presented a restoration of the original four hour version of the film, which is the way the film is exclusively seen now, usually split into two parts titled "Manon des Sources" and "Ugolin", as per Pagnol's original wishes.

For theatrical release, the film was truncated to a length of about two hours, much to filmmaker Marcel Pagnol's frustration. It was restored to its full length for television broadcast in 1968 and has since been seen in this way, generally split into two parts, respectively titled "Manon des Sources" and "Ugolin".