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Author Irwin Shaw wrote the screenplay for this adaptation of two of his short stories set in Paris. Christina James (Jean Seberg) is a footloose American girl living in the City of Lights. She becomes involved with Guy (Philippe Forquet), who tells her that he's a student at the University studying engineering, but when they plan a rendezvous at a cheap hotel, he confesses to her that he's really only 16 years old. Christina breaks it off with him and goes through a series of brief and unsatisfying affairs with a variety of men until she meets Walter Beddoes (Stanley Baker), a journalist with an unfortunate appetite for alcohol. Despite the fact his work often forces him to travel abroad on a moment's notice, Christina is deeply in love with Walter, and when her father (Addison James) tries to persuade her to come back to the United States, she refuses, preferring to stay with Walter. In time, Christina realizes that Walter is away from her more often than he's with her, and when she meets John Haislip (James Leo Herlihy), an American doctor vacationing in France, she has to decide if her passion for Walter is more important than her feelings for John, who wants her to come to his home in San Francisco, where he'll always be there for her. In the French Style offered an appropriate role for actress Jean Seberg, who was born in Iowa but found most of her best film roles after she moved to France.