Mademoiselle Fifi

Mademoiselle Fifi is a 1944 RKO period film directed by Robert Wise, in his solo directorial debut. It was written by Josef Mischel and Peter Ruric based on two short stories by Guy de Maupassant, "Mademoiselle Fifi" and "Boule de Suif". The film features an ensemble cast headed by Simone Simon, John Emery and Kurt Kreuger, and was produced by noted B-film producer Val Lewton. In occupied France during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, a beautiful young laundress, Elizabeth Rousset , shares a stage coach ride from Rouen with a group of condescending nobles and businessmen and their wives, a... political firebrand named Jean Cornudet and a young priest on his way to his new assignment . When they stop for the night at a village controlled by Prussian Lieutenant von Eyrick, known to his fellow officers as "Mademoiselle Fifi" , their coach is held up until the laundress agrees to "dine" with the lieutenant. Unlike her social betters, who have all fraternized with the enemy, and had them as guests in their homes, Elizabeth is a simple patriot, and will not eat or consort with the invaders of her country, so the coach cannot go on.
more