AllMovie

Jean-Pierre Cassel is ideally cast as the hopelessly optimistic Candide in this noir updating of Voltaire's classic 18th-century social satire. Candide has been assured by his ivory-tower professor (Pierre Brasseur) that whatever fate befalls him, he will be all the better for it. Armed with the confidence of the ignorant, Candide is abused by practically everyone he comes across (he has a particularly rough time in a German POW camp), but somehow emerges with his faith in humanity unscathed. His picaresque adventures take him all the way to the Americas, both North and South. Just as in most stage versions of Candide, some of the supporting actors play double and triple roles: Robert Manuel, for example, portrays all the German officers Candide meets.