Benefits: Emile Zola was a crusading journalist, literary innovator, and a man who stood up for what he believed in at great personal cost. In this film children will be introduced to his life story. The movie also describes the infamous Dreyfus Affair in which the French Army General Staff mistakenly blamed a high-level security leak on its only Jewish member and sentenced him to life in prison on Devil's Island. When the Army came upon evidence that a mistake had been made, the General Staff refused to acknowledge its error, but rather collaborated with the real spy to cover up the mistake. In its treatment of the Dreyfus affair the movie poses the question: "Is the suffering of one obscure person worth the disturbance of a great country?" Finally, the movie shows how Zola died from a carbon monoxide leak in his stove and provides a basis to explain the danger of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Frank S. Nugent of the New York Times described this film as "Rich, dignified, honest and strong, it is at once the finest historical film ever made and the greatest screen biography ...." There may have been other great biographical films since Mr. Nugent wrote his review, such as Gandhi or Michael Collins, but they all trace their artistic inspiration to The Life of Emile Zola