Simone Simon doesn't take the title role in Mademoiselle Fifi  that dubious honour goes to Kurt Krueger  but it's still her best role outside of the Cat People films. A rare non-horror credit for Val Lewton, it's a well-mounted and surprisingly effective combination of two of Guy De Maupassant's stories about passive resistance in the Franco-Prussian war that works as an effective WW2 propaganda piece. Simon's character may have been changed from a plump prostitute to a petite laundress (this was the 1940s, after all), but the first half, based on the story that inspired Stagecoach, is still a remarkably effective adaptation that segues comfortably into the second story, linking them both by a battle of wills with the titular bored Prussian officer who wants the population to submit to his whims purely as a mark of obsequiousness. Nicely directed by Robert Wise, it deserves to be much better known and it's a shame that Warners couldn't find a place for it on their Val Lewton boxed set, though Editions Montparnasse's French DVD is an acceptable transfer.