Simply A Masterpiece

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

"The performances are mainly so-so but Simon, the beauty she is, can't do much. Her performance here is pretty bad and at times laughable due to her voice, which sounded really bad here. I've never been a big fan of hers but this is certainly the worst thing I've seen her do. " As i have quoted here from another IMDb user, and to shed some light. Simone Simon NEVER liked this movie. She did NOT like how her character was portrayed (due to censors) and she NEVER had anything to say good about this movie. This would at least explain why her character in this film falls flat for some viewers. She was under contract with RKO and she was friends with and cared a lot for Val Lewton, which explains why she took the role. I enjoy the movie for what it is, and do not read anything deeply dramatic about it. I am a Simone Simon fan so i enjoy the movie at least on that level.Thanks.

Mademoiselle Fifi (1944) ** (out of 4) Val Lewton produced drama about a French laundress (Simone Simon) who boards a coach with several higher up French folks and soon teaches them how to be nice to one another even though war is coming. This film is about as hokey as any movie I've ever witnessed. I still get a chuckle out of producer Lewton who looked down on having to make horror films or work with Boris Karloff yet he seemed fine with a film like this. The low budget certainly doesn't help things but most of the movie takes place inside the stagecoach or within a small room. Wise's direction handles the material pretty well but there's simply not too much here to work with. The performances are mainly so-so but Simon, the beauty she is, can't do much. Her performance here is pretty bad and at times laughable due to her voice, which sounded really bad here. I've never been a big fan of hers but this is certainly the worst thing I've seen her do.

A minor movie set at the end of the 19th century in France, during the Prusian occupation. It's an adaptation from a Guy de Maupassant that deals with the lack of ideals in the upper classes and how the poor are the ones who end up making sacrifices for their country (and for those rich people who has no ideals).What's more attractive about "Madamemoiselle Fifi" is the presence of the so beautiful and sexy Simone Simon. Apart from that it's just a pleasant product, one of the first that filmed the prestigious director Robert Wise.*My rate: 5/10

There is a good film waiting to be made out of de Maupassant's story, but this isn't it. (Stagecoach isn't either). We can understand it isn't Lewton and Wise's fault, it's just that the censorship wouldn't allow it to be done properly then.Thus, the central character gets turned into a laundress, and the climax comes when she... HAS DINNER with the sadistic Prussian officer!! (in the story, she was shunned by her fellow passengers for being a hooker, then she saves the day by going to bed with him)).Modern directors like Agnieszka Holland or M.L. Bemberg could make a really great movie out of this, but 1940's America was just not the place.