Mademoiselle Fifi (1944)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

A rare non-horror effort from producer Val Lewton, this is a period film about a patriotic laundress during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Lewton brought along Cat People star Simone Simon and director Robert Wise (who would do two horror films for Lewton, including Curse of the Cat People with Simon). Despite the setting, it's very obviously meant to be about Nazi-occupied France. It's also pretty clear Simon's character was meant to be a prostitute but the Code wouldn't allow that. The way the upper class types look down on her and the stuff about the German officer wanting to "dine" with her and her steadfast refusal over something so minor is indicative that more is going on here than the script is allowed to say outright. Simone's gorgeous as ever. I love her adorable accent. She handles herself well in this often unexciting costumer. The rest of the cast is fine, with Kurt Kreuger a standout as the slimy villain (and the title character). It's a beautiful-looking film with cinematography by Harry Wild. Lewton fans might like to take a look at it but don't expect anything like his atmospheric horror films.

like many movies from period, it is seductive for its atmosphere. it is a kind of Maupassant in American skin. nice, clean, melodramatic, with patriotic heart but , in same measure, good example for a manner to present a drama. sure, like many films of war , its purpose is obvious - to be model for viewers. but it is its sin. Simone Simon is perfect gem for a strange construction, without real story and almost confuse. Manichean lines of script, the good and bad characters, the message like stamp on letter, a great potential and fear to expose more than demand of rules. a film. like many. interesting seed for discover Maupassant work/style. and for hope to a better adaptation.

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.

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.