A tiny boarding-school: there are only six students and they belong to a so called bourgeoisie ; the headmistress rules them with a rod of iron but it does not prevent them from smoking at night in their dormitory :it may explain (it's not precised) the fire which destroys the place ;thus the girls have to take refuge in their family's place ; then it becomes a film made up of sketches,a genre Julien Duvivier lent credibility to ("un carnet de bal").
It 's Le Hénaff's wish,but it's the great Duvivier's reality ; the films drags on;after an interminable part in the boarding-school , including a musical sequence which is mostly filler ,one makes acquaintance with the families ; all are broke , a mother has become a third-rate actress and has her daughter pass of as her sister ,for fear they may guess her age ; a father runs a night club .
One can save,at a pinch two sequences:Fernand Ledoux , short of the readies ,has become a clown ,complete with make up ; then Gaby Morlay ,as a false fortune-teller, provides the movie with a welcome comic relief.
If there's a lesson to be learned from this so-so effort, it's that family is one of the bedrock of society (along with work and homeland) : its was the Occupation days and Maréchal Pétain 's motto ; as the very last picture bears out, it reflects the
zeitgeist of those somber years.
