Fortunate

During the Second World War, a well-off woman whose husband has been arrested by the Gestapo has to go into hiding with her children. The man who opens his door to them is Fortunat: coarse in his speech, barely literate, and large-hearted. Two worlds end up living in the same room. She looks down on him at first, and he notices, and puts nobody out. Alex Joffé's film tells the difference in class together with the pressure of the occupation. Heroism here is not a decision but a small stubbornness repeated daily; Fortunat takes the risk again every morning and expects nothing back for it. Bourvil moves away from the comic type he was known for and carries a heavy part. Opposite him, Michèle Morgan plays a woman slowly losing her own standing.