The Grand Maneuver

Rene Clair's Grand Maneuver was originally titled Les Grandes Manoeuvres, which should surprise no one. Gerard Phillipe plays a dashing dragoons officer, vintage 1913, who wagers his friends that he can make the next woman who enters the room fall in love with him. In strides drop-dead gorgeous Michele Morgan, and the rest writes itself. Phillipe plans a slow seduction and a quick goodbye; Morgan, need we say, is no "goodbye girl." For all its lavish sets and meticulously detailed period costumers, Grand Maneuver is at base the old American farce Sailor Beware with a French accent.