Yo no me vendo

A minor movie set at the end of the 19th century in France, during the Prusian occupation. It's an adaptation from a Guy de Maupassant that deals with the lack of ideals in the upper classes and how the poor are the ones who end up making sacrifices for their country (and for those rich people who has no ideals).

What's more attractive about "Madamemoiselle Fifi" is the presence of the so beautiful and sexy Simone Simon. Apart from that it's just a pleasant product, one of the first that filmed the prestigious director Robert Wise.

*My rate: 5/10

There is a good film waiting to be made out of de Maupassant's story, but this isn't it. (Stagecoach isn't either). We can understand it isn't Lewton and Wise's fault, it's just that the censorship wouldn't allow it to be done properly then.

Thus, the central character gets turned into a laundress, and the climax comes when she... HAS DINNER with the sadistic Prussian officer!! (in the story, she was shunned by her fellow passengers for being a hooker, then she saves the day by going to bed with him)).

Modern directors like Agnieszka Holland or M.L. Bemberg could make a really great movie out of this, but 1940's America was just not the place.

Simone Simon to me was always a fascinating woman. When I saw her on TV in Cat People, my mother told me that she had disappeared after the war. I was a kid, and I thought it was something mysterious. Years later I found out she just went back to France, where she lived to age 94.

Simon doesn't play the title role here; Kurt Krueger does. She plays a laundress in a combination of two Guy De Maupassant stories about the Franco-Prussian war. They must have resonated during World War II.

Simon's character hates the Prussians and doesn't go along with them, though many in the town do. The theme here is passive resistance, and how the poor make sacrifices for their country.

The first part of the film takes place in a carriage and was supposedly the inspiration for "Stagecoach."

Directed by Robert Wise and produced by, of all people, Val Lewton, this is a short film, mildly entertaining.

Actually, Simon's life would make a much more exciting story. Men she liked were given a gold key to her bedroom; she had a relationship with an MI5 spy, Dusko Popov, who was in actuality a double agent. Popov was supposedly the model for James Bond. Simon also had an affair with George Gershwin. I have a feeling there are lots of other interesting stories to be told.

SIMONE SIMON, who gained so much fame from her "Cat People" persona and a subsequent film called "Curse of the Cat People", appears here in an uneven costume drama adapted from two Guy DeMaupassant stories about class differences at the time of the Franco-Prussian war in 1870 and a young woman who has to assert herself when the going gets rough. She shows spirit in her offbeat role and the cast is a good one, featuring JOHN EMERY, ALAN NAPIER, KURT KREUGER and JASON ROBARDS, SR.

The coach scene that takes up the first twenty minutes or so of the story is reminiscent of "Stagecoach" in which the characters behave snobbishly toward Claire Trevor, as the prostitute with a heart of gold. Here it's SIMONE SIMON as a laundress with her own sense of pride, refusing to deal with the Prussians or Germans on any level, not even willing to do their laundry. Only when she offers food and drink to the other passengers, do they begin to find any good in her, at least temporarily.

Her loyalty to France makes her resist the request of the Prussian officer, KURT KREUGER, to dine with them when the passengers must stay over at an inn. The other passengers get together and force her to humble her patriotism for the sake of letting them go on with their journey. She complies and the next day when they resume their journey, the others are ungrateful to her and treat her shabbily again. JOHN EMERY tells them off and leaves the coach to meet up with her. She refuses to accept his apology for not taking a stronger stand in the resistance movement but changes her mind later when he does prove to be heroic.

The resistance message seems to reflect the type of WWII propaganda films Hollywood churned out during this period, but the film is an odd mixture of costume drama and patriotism under fire.

Not exactly a ground breaker, but interesting, especially for fans of Simone Simon's screen persona. Just why this particular story interested Val Lewton, considering his background as a man who preferred making horror films, is not clear to me.

The film,"Mademoiselle Fifi" is a combination of two of Guy de Maupassant's patriotic stories: "Boule de Suif," the story of a patriotic French girl whose love for her country is misunderstood by those with whom she comes in contact; and "Mademoiselle Fifi,", a tale of a sadistic Prussian officer intent on breaking the will of conquered France, who has been nicknamed "Mademoiselle Fifi" by his comrades because of his constant use of the phrase "Fi fi done." The action takes place during the last part of the Franco-Prussian Way, the locale being occupied France from the city of Rouen, headquarters of the German Third Army, to a little village near the unoccupied territory.