by Eleanor Mannikka
synopsis
This is a routine, somewhat melodramatic wartime tale set in Occupied France and featuring Michele Morgan as Juliette, a woman with two children who is forced to flee the occupied zone for the French free zone after her partisan husband is captured by the Germans. Juliette cannot manage this escape with her family on her own and so Fortunat (Bourvil) agrees to escort her across the checkpoints, posing as her husband. That is not an easy bluff because he is a simple peasant while she is from the upper echelons of the social hierarchy. Matters become complicated when they cross paths with a deported Jewish family, and even more complicated when Fortunat and Juliette start to fall in love.
