In 1870, during the Franco-Prussian war, gorgeous laundress Elisabeth Rousset (Simone Simon) is returning home in Cleresville in the occupied France with a snobbish and selfish group of aristocrats, businessmen and a young priest in a stagecoach. When they stop in a inn for the night, the arrogant Prussian Lt. von Eyrick (Kurt Kreuger), known by his alias Mademoiselle Fifi, decides to break the patriotism of Elisabeth and holds up the stagecoach until Elisabeth agrees to "have dinner" with him in his room. The selfish group forces Elisabeth to meet Mademoiselle Fifi, who humiliates her in his room. When the stagecoach finally departs, only Jean Cornudet (John Emery) and the priest comfort Elisabeth and Cornudet decides to stay in Cleresville to ask for forgiveness to Elisabeth. However she rejects his apologies but he decides to stay in the church to help the young priest to resist the Prussians that want him to ring the church bell. Meanwhile Elisabeth is forced to go to a party with Prussian officers where Mademoiselle Fifi is. What will happen to Elisabeth and Cornudet?"Mademoiselle Fifi" is a dull tale of patriotism, with a story that shows the upper classes together with the enemy to keep their privileges and a simple laundress and a priest as symbols of the resistance and rejection of the enemies. The intention of "having dinner with the enemy in his room" is a very clear metaphor of the true intention of the Prussian office. My vote is five.Title (Brazil): "Mademoiselle Fifi"

There isn't too terribly much that I could add that hasn't already been said.However, to add on something for one of Profesor Lisistwitz's observations-yes the heroines in both stories were prostitutes but, given the state of the censorship codes at that time, their true profession(by the way, the world's oldest) wouldn't have been acceptable. In addition, most of the other critics have quite perceptively noticed and mentioned that the screenplay is based on two of Guy De Mauppassant' short stories, which have been quite cleverly put together.And this IS the genius of the scriptwriters.The humiliated girl in "Ball of Fat" come back to retaliate against the villain who humiliated her in the beginning.Well done!

Robert Wise directs this dramatic offering produced by Val Lewton, who strays from his string of low-budget horror flicks for RKO. In occupied France, a young French laundress(Simone Simon) refuses to give in to a small village's Prussian oppressors. She is given permission to travel to her hometown Cleresville and shares a coach ride through the snow with several socialites with strongly opposite political views than her own. The film's name comes from the nickname of one of the most brutal Prussian officers Lt. von Eyick(Kurt Kreuger)who is called 'Fifi'. Very good scenery depicting the WWII devastation. Others in the cast: Jason Robards Sr., Romaine Callender, Edmund Gover, Helen Freeman, Fay Helm and John Emery.

SIMONE SIMON, who gained so much fame from her "Cat People" persona and a subsequent film called "Curse of the Cat People", appears here in an uneven costume drama adapted from two Guy DeMaupassant stories about class differences at the time of the Franco-Prussian war in 1870 and a young woman who has to assert herself when the going gets rough. She shows spirit in her offbeat role and the cast is a good one, featuring JOHN EMERY, ALAN NAPIER, KURT KREUGER and JASON ROBARDS, SR.The coach scene that takes up the first twenty minutes or so of the story is reminiscent of "Stagecoach" in which the characters behave snobbishly toward Claire Trevor, as the prostitute with a heart of gold. Here it's SIMONE SIMON as a laundress with her own sense of pride, refusing to deal with the Prussians or Germans on any level, not even willing to do their laundry. Only when she offers food and drink to the other passengers, do they begin to find any good in her, at least temporarily.Her loyalty to France makes her resist the request of the Prussian officer, KURT KREUGER, to dine with them when the passengers must stay over at an inn. The other passengers get together and force her to humble her patriotism for the sake of letting them go on with their journey. She complies and the next day when they resume their journey, the others are ungrateful to her and treat her shabbily again. JOHN EMERY tells them off and leaves the coach to meet up with her. She refuses to accept his apology for not taking a stronger stand in the resistance movement but changes her mind later when he does prove to be heroic.The resistance message seems to reflect the type of WWII propaganda films Hollywood churned out during this period, but the film is an odd mixture of costume drama and patriotism under fire.Not exactly a ground breaker, but interesting, especially for fans of Simone Simon's screen persona. Just why this particular story interested Val Lewton, considering his background as a man who preferred making horror films, is not clear to me.