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Marie, newly married to a man twenty years her senior, lives in an enormous castle on the coast of Normandy.
The time is 1944. In anticipation of the Allied landing, led by an officer, the Germans occupy the castle, while London parachutes a young French officer into the grounds, with the task of organizing the resistance movement. Both officers take an intense interest in the bored Marie: their rivalry attracting the attention of her husband. When the Allies land on the coast, things begin to move thick and fast.
In Jean-Paul Rappenau's first film, the hitherto sacred subject of the Resistance becomes the focal point of comedy — a sacrilege to which some French critics responded with shocked outrage. Others lavished praise on the young writer-director for his witty and inventive script, and for his sure-handed direction of the excellent cast in a complex and original comedy.
Prix Delluc, 1966.