The Grand Maneuver

The Grand Maneuver French Les Grandes Manuvres is a 1955 French drama film written and directed by Ren Clair, and starring Michle Morgan and Grard Philipe. It was released in the United Kingdom and Ireland as Summer Manoeuvres, and in the United States under the title The Grand Maneuver. It is a romantic comedydrama set in a French provincial town just before World War I, and it was Ren Clairs first film to be made in colour.

In Ren Clairs own words, Love is the only concern of Les Grandes Manuvres, and he added that the film was one of the countless variations to be made on the inexhaustible theme of Don Juan. The film is set in a French garrison town in the period just before the First World War, the end of the Belle poque. Describing the origins of the film, Clair said, Having passed a part of my childhood near Versailles, I could not forget the cavalry officers, their galloping in the forest of Viroflay, the rumors of their adventures, a duel which the newspapers talked about and in which two of those officers died.... Elsewhere he commented, For me it is a very sentimental film, even more sentimental because it is situated in the period of my childhood. I put into it things that I saw.Clairs aim was to create a portrait of provincial life in the years before 1914, and close attention was paid to the fashions of the period and the rituals of military life. Les Grandes Manuvres was Clairs first film in colour, a medium he had wanted to use since his time in England in the late 1930s, because, he stated, it would enable him to keep reality at a distance The production designer, Lon Barsacq, created sets in which muted colours were dominant, with furniture and accessories in black or white, and costumes mainly in beige or brown they even sprayed the leaves of trees with yellow so that their shade of green would not be too bright. The only bold colour permitted was red, the red of the military uniforms. ........

Source: Wikipedia