Mademoiselle Fifi (film)
Mademoiselle Fifi is a 1944 American period film directed by Robert Wise for RKO, 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. The movie is set during a time when the Prussian Army occupied part of France in 1870. Since it was produced in Hollywood during the Second World War, in the same year Paris was liberated from Nazi rule, it contains elements of wartime propaganda, evoking Jeanne D’Arc among other heroes of French history, and holding up French people in occupied territory who follow orders as objects of pity or outrage, depending on their circumstances. Plot 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