What's the news, then? Huh?
Oh, the Giants won.
The Giants?
Baseball.
And what about Paris?
Didn't you hear the radio?
I have no radio. It's finished.
Washed up.
Paris has fallen?
Germans marched in last night.
Without a fight?
They capitulated.
I don't believe this.
Hey. We better get moving.
Raymond doesn't like to be kept waiting.
You want the job, don't you?
Yes.
$60 a week is a lot of dough just for writing an art column.
I need an advance.
Do you think he'll give it to me?
I told him you were in Spain.
He doesn't exactly think you've got
Generalissimo Franco written on your heart.
But play it down a little, will you?
I, too, was a general.
Yeah, well, better not mention.
I am unlikely to boast.
I know the price a man has to pay for having fought in Spain.
Six months, I'm without work.
Well, we Americans don't like war.
Then you are going to be very happy.
When Hitler invade England,
everything is under the jackboot.
You have peace, then - totalitarian peace.
OK, better than Europe having these wars every 20 years or so.
Look, I don't like these Nazis, but they're human beings, right?
So they conquer Europe.
What happens?
They won themselves a hell of a lot of problems, that's all.
A dozen different languages and cultures.
How do they sort it out?
There's just one way.
Let every country run itself
inside one big European federation. Well, don't you see?
It'll be something like our United States of America.
Oh, I'm sorry.
You're probably worrying about your wife and kid.
They'll be in Paris right at this minute? Christ, I hope not.
Well, Paris will be the safest spot in Europe right now.
For all that you Europeans shoot each other up, you recognise
the importance of your heritage.
You've said quite firmly,
"Paris is a sanctuary.
"Must be left unharmed."
Madrid held out for two and a half years.
Now, we're not going to compare Madrid and Paris, I hope?
I hope not, too. You don't like Paris?
He's there right now.
Huh?
Did the French lift a finger against Franco?
I am glad Hitler has got to Paris.
Let them have a taste of it.
I am glad.
Let's go.
Oh, Christ, of course.
We've lost the war.
The Germans are in Paris.
AIRPLANE
Look out!
..it's a Messerschmitt. Are you sure?
Look at the engine - it's a Messerschmitt 37, I tell you.
Stupid buggers.
They're shooting at them!
Bloody hell, he'll come back and blast us.
Keep still, the lot of you, or he'll spot us.
Stupid bastards.
Fancy firing on them now, what's the point?
He's buggering off. Thank Christ, he's buggering off.
Oh, jeez.
CROSSTALK
Mathieu? What? What is it?
Do you think we'll be moving off today? I don't know.
If we stay here much longer, we're all going to get captured.
I'm a Jew.
And me Dad was Polish.
Yes, I know.
Shut up and listen!
BANGING
How far off do you think?
I'd say 30km.
Why don't they give up?
What the devil do you think you're doing?
Are you out of your minds? Answer me.
What do you think you're doing here?
We decided to sleep out in the open, sir.
You decided?
If the German bombers spotted you,
they could destroy the whole of divisional HQ.
The Germans know perfectly well we're here.
All our moves were made in broad daylight.
I gave strict orders that nobody was to leave that barn.
And what are you all doing lying on your backs in the presence
of an officer? Get up.
So...
You're one of them, too, are you, Sergeant?
You ought to be damned well ashamed of yourself.
Will you please kindly explain to me why you left that barn?
It's too hot in there, sir.
We couldn't sleep. Too hot?
I suppose we should have installed an electric fan or two for you. Ha-ha!
Has nobody told you there's a war on?
The war's over, sir.
Over?
But they're still fighting over there.
They've been told to keep on firing until the Armistice is signed.
They're getting themselves killed for nothing, the poor sods.
Now, look here, you... Oh...
Whatever happens, you're still soldiers.
And until you're sent back home, you'll behave
as soldiers and obey your officers.
FART
SOLDIERS LAUGH
You'll be staying with us, then, sir. What?
You'll stay by us all the way to the prison camp?
Well, sir?
SOLDIERS HUM GERMAN ANTHEM
Get up and get dressed.
At once.
FART
SOLDIERS LAUGH
There's an officer who would make a
bloody good ballet dancer, wouldn't he?
It's his last dance.
Yeah, you're right.
What's the matter, my darling?
Yes, it's all too quiet, isn't it?
Silence can be terrifying.
Only you and me in the whole of Paris. Hmm?
Oh, no, not quite.
There are lots of other pussies about,
and now that their masters and mistresses have done a bunk,
they're having one hell of a time.
I've seen dozens of them on my walk,
chasing rats, emptying dustbins,
or simply doing naughty little pussy things to each other.
No milk today, I'm afraid.
All the shops are shut and barred, it's a dead city,
my darling.
Motionless.
Have a little smoked salmon, why don't you? Hmm?
There.
You know, you must thank your lucky stars that your master is not only
a queer and a stock exchange stag,
but nowadays he is also a high churchman.
In short, he has every qualification for the black market.
Hmm?
Well, we have to survive, don't we?
Yes.
I've just walked down
from the Luxembourg to the Rue Danton,
where are the heroes?
Where are the defenders of this great French culture of ours?
The artistic and intellectual leadership of Europe and the world?
I'll tell you. In brief,
once challenged, they've had the shits and pissed off.
That's the truth about our great French culture.
It's a hollow veneer, a brilliant chat of scented boudoirs.
That's our great contribution to mankind.
The empty, yapping, cosy, sexy, graceful stint.
The great, bummed-up Paris is empty.
All gone, deserted.
It's only me and you left to comfort each other.
Blind, stupid nature and a pervert.
I'm a pervert, all right.
I went down to the Pont Saint-Miche, and when I got there, do you know
what I wanted to do?
I wanted to pull my trousers down and stand there,
everything exposed, and shout out to those empty streets...
..long live Germany.
Yes, puss.
Long live Germany.
They've got something real,
something basic and muscular and cruel and beautiful.
Ours is phoney.
All that fellow citizen and democratic rubbish.
When the real test comes,
everybody runs away because they know in their hearts it is a lie.
Only the Germans have the truth.
I thank you, God, for Adolf Hitler.
Through him, you have shown us the truth.
LAUGHTER AND CHATTER
Come on, you filthy bugger. Get up and wash.
Yeah. Take your hand off the one-eyed snake. You'll die,
as wankers do, I'm telling you.
Oh, shut it. Posh yourself up, just to please the bloody Boche.
Not me, mate. They can take me as they find me.
Yeah, we might move on today.
Then we won't be taken prisoner. Come on, get up out of there.
Piss off. Yeah, he's right.
You might be ordered to retreat, then line up and fight it out. Oh, yeah,
Father Christmas might come down your chimney...
Listen, we may be took prisoner,
but it's no reason to behave like shit-eats, is it, eh?
Get off!
Listen, when the Boche comes, we've got to look clean and tidy.
We may have lost the war, but we're not bloody pigs.
We're French.
Vive la France.
Come on! Oh, shove off...
Leave him alone, why don't you? That's the way he wants it.
We all need a good blow through. That's what's wrong with us.
Raise one at this hour?
I can do any time, mate, can't you?
At this time of the morning?
Oh, dear. You must be joking.
I'd rather have a good crap.
You ain't married, are you?
When you're married, you've got to learn to do the job
whenever she wants it.
Mind you, a good bounce has got its advantages.
Frees the mind, see, stops you thinking about things.
Besides, when you're married, you ain't got time to have a crap.
That's true. Listen! Shut up and
listen, everybody.
What's up, then?
The guns have stopped.
COCKEREL CROWS
It could be a general order.
No more firing, over the whole front.
What front?
There ain't no front.
I think what happens is that first we'll hear a bugle call.
Don't be stupid. There ain't no lines of communication.
It's all broke down.
They might have signed the Armistice 24 hour ago...
..we'd know damn-all about it.
Hey, look, the war could have ended at midnight.
Well, they always have the ceasefire at midnight.
Zero hours, innit? Shut up!
DISTANT GUNFIRE
Ah, strewth.
Hey, what are they mucking about at?
Don't they know we've had our bleeding shifts.
We've been butchered enough, ain't we? Who's been butchered?
Hey, go on, tell me, where's the dead?
Where's the wounded? I can't see any.
All I can see is a lot of windy buggers like you.
Now, don't come it, mate.
What's got into him? Anybody know? I thought he was the best amongst us
when it come to swinging the lead.
I've never known you to volunteer for nothing, mate. Mind you, now the war's over...
Who said the war's over?
Look, we might have to retreat right across France,
there's always North Africa, isn't there? Oh, yeah.
And if that fails, we could cross the Atlantic, couldn't we?
How about French Guiana?
You take your bloody...
Stop it. Poxy piss tank! What's the matter with you two, fighting?
Fighting's not going to settle anything.
There'll be no more war, no more fighting, not ever again.
The Germans must realise it,
the same as us. War's in nobody's interest.
We've all got to live in peace, all men.
That's just the sort of bleedin' attitude
that's lost us the bleedin' war.
He's a tough little champion, this morning.
Everyone out of step bar him.
Shut up! Sweat cobs.
Come on, leave him alone. What's the matter?
What are you saying, Mathieu? Hey, come on,
you're not bloody deaf. What's your opinion?
I have no opinion.
I thought schoolmasters had opinions about everything.
No, not everything. Oh, dear, oh, dear,
you do disappoint me.
Shut up!
You know perfectly well further resistance is impossible.
What?
Well, you're the last bloke I thought would have the wind up.
The French should fight to the finish.
We should fight to the last man.
Pinette. What?
If it was a question of MY fighting and dying,
I can have an opinion because it's me.
I can't decide for others.
Well, why not?
I mean, somebody's got to do it, haven't they? Otherwise, nothing
gets bloody organised.
Look, there are no decisions we can make
that alter things one little bit.
So why pretend? Why have opinions,
if nothing can grow out of them, why pretend that we're men,
when we're just shadows?
Eh? I didn't choose this war.
I didn't choose this defeat.
Of course we can pretend we've got opinions.
We can pretend we've got choice.
It's just make-believe. We're comedians,
the lot of us, acting out somebody else's bloody question mark.
HE GROANS
What is it?
What's wrong, man?
Well, spill it out, for Christ's sake.
Look, you're going to be the greatest art critic
we've ever had. It's all up to you.
Sure. It's all up to me.
Well, what's wrong, then?
Raymond give us too good a lunch, huh?
Too much wine and brandy.
You think the drink has gone to my head?
If you could have seen yourself when we crossed Central Park,
I thought you were going to take off.
Yes, I was elated when I came out of the restaurant.
It was like a cataract had been torn from my eyes. Such colours.
Crimson, gold.
They vibrate. They dazzle.
They explode upon my vision.
It was as though the world of form and colour was begging me
to make my swansong.
I shall not sing again.
I am no longer a painter.
I must live and work a stage removed.
I am an art critic.
That puts you in a very powerful position.
No, no, no, the doing is all.
These are other men's thoughts and colours.
They are finalised. They're finished.
They're dead things.
Then, we'd better take a stroll around the mall.
I'd better start earning my $100 advance.
It says nothing to me.
You can't get back into your old form right away.
You've got to give your mind to it.
Give my mind to that!
Oh, I thought you like Mondrian.
So did I.
Well, you needn't necessarily write about Mondrian
for your first article. Not necessarily.
But my editor didn't give the right touch of seriousness
to my criticisms, the right highbrow tone.
Look, Gomez, don't start off by being too destructive, will you?
Why not? Because you're...
You're writing for the great American public
and they don't like shocks.
Write simple, common sense things.
Say them with charm.
That's the way you'll make a name for yourself.
You think so?
If you have to attack someone, then for Pete's sake,
don't let it be Mondrian! He's our god!
Naturally, he asks no questions!
Yes, a hell of a lot.
Yes, but no more disturbing questions.
Nothing... Nothing painful.
You mean questions like sex,
the meaning of life, poverty?
I was forgetting you studied in Germany. Grundlichkeit, huh?
CHUCKLES: Don't you think that's just a little demode?
What is the function of a painter? Huh?
What do you ask of him?
For his innocence, of course.
For that transcendental thing the artist has.
Take this one.
It makes you feel you want to blossom out,
it's so full of joy.
I'm not full of joy.
I would be the lowest, I would be a cabrone,
should I have any claim to joy!
All my friends are in prison or dead.
You've got a lot of personal problems, I know -
fascism, defeat of the Allies,
Spain, your wife and kid -
but it's a good thing to get above all that occasionally.
Not for one moment.
Not for a single moment!
Well, what would you paint, then?
Strikes? Massacres? Bloated capitalists?
I've never much believed in revolutionary art.
And at the moment, I don't believe in it at all.
Well, that makes two of us.
GROANS: Trouble is, I'm not at all sure
I haven't lost my belief in art of any kind.
And in revolution?
I have seen all I want to see.
I can compose an article on Mondrian any time I like!
Picasso's Guernica.
SCREAMING
BOMB EXPLODES
SCREAMING, GUNFIRE
BABY CRIES, GUNFIRE
EXPLOSIONS, CRYING CONTINUES
This is why I suspect art.
Huh?
Suffering becomes justified when the artists use it
to make a work of art.
The suffering I have seen,
I do not wish to justify.
Perhaps it's why I shall never paint again.
Sorry, I... I don't get you.
One cannot paint evil.
I think I shall go a walk, find a little French cafe somewhere.
There's one on 55th Street, La Petite Coquette.
Good. Yeah, but I thought you...
Well? You despise the French.
That is why I wish to see what the Frenchmen are looking like today.
They give up Paris.
They run away like rats.
They have no principles, no beliefs.
They are a lost people!
Cities sometime go to the heart to indulge in contempt.
See you.
COUGHING
COUGHS: What are they bloody burning?!
Our maps.
COUGHING
Here we are. "Scale 1:10,000." Oh, God!
Oh, what a state! Come on, I'm...
CROSSTALK, COUGHING
Anything's better than that.
THEY GROAN
They're setting fire to the divisional records,
the whole bloody lot.
You know what?
I saw the captain burn his wife's letters.
You pulling our legs? That's right. And he burnt her photos.
I saw her in the flames. Lovely piece, she was. Dark hair.
Bloody great pair of bouncers, she had!
Ah, get away with you! I'm telling you. Bloody hell!
Are you going to burn your pusher's photos, Mathieu?
Well, I haven't...got a pusher.
What about you? You burning your wife's?
Wait till the Germans get here, first.
What's that you got there, Longin?
This? History book.
What history book?
History of the two Restorations.
Oh! Who's it by?
Vaulabelle.
Vaulabelle? Who's he?
Buggered if I know. Would you lend it to me? When I've read it.
Here, give him it!
"Book Three"? You won't know how it starts!
LAUGHTER It's to occupy my mind, that's all.
I've lost me place now.
LAUGHTER
What you writing, Sarge, your memoirs?
Oh, no, mate. No, I'm just keeping up with me
correspondence course. Ah.
What you got there? Oh, a bit of bread, mate.
Where'd you get it? Scrounged at dinner. Oh.
Well... It's all wrapped up now, innit?
What is? What's happened?
It has.
Eh? What has?
It's signed? Yeah. Signed this morning.
Hey, how do you know? Charlie was just telling me.
Where did he get it from? On the wireless.
News has just come through.
DISTANT ARTILLERY
What are they doing, then? The ceasefire's not till midnight.
You're not having us on, are you? It's official.
Come on, give us the details! No details.
Just the statement, that's all. What about us? Hmm?
What about us? What happens?
We get demobbed? We're sent home? What? I just told you. No details!
They've thrown in the towel! The bastards, they've thrown in the towel!
Armistice is signed, then? Right on the dotted line.
There won't be much bargaining.
Boche has got us by the short and hairy, hasn't he?
We're the lowest form of animal life, I tell you.
We're so low, we could crawl under a snake's belly with a top hat on!
It's all right for you, isn't it, Schwartz?
You come from Alsace. All that happens to you
is the bloody Germans readopt you.
All right, I'm dead cushy. Jealous?
You rotten German bastard!
THEY LAUGH
Just my luck. Hey, put in a good word for us, why don't you, mate?
Why should I, you load of French poofs?
THEY LAUGH
You speak German, do you?
Of course I do. I got it from me dad.
Well, you tell the Germans where to find his bloody runners...
LAUGHTER, CROSSTALK
What am I laughing for?
Oh, Mathieu!
LAUGHTER
LAUGHTER CONTINUES
IN HEAD: This laughter - who am I to pass judgment?
They're making the great refusal.
Rather than be dignified, civilised Frenchmen,
they choose to be giggling, cackling shit heaps!
Yet the choice is right, spontaneous and right.
Why worry about anything as long as one has health and food and drink?
They've seen the truth.
They don't strut around as tragic victims, historic figures.
They don't claim their predestined failures.
They don't even comfort themselves with the thought
that life is a gamble.
They use their laughter to bounce back from the walls of absurdity.
They laugh to punish themselves, to purify themselves,
to have their vengeance.
No, I can't condemn them,
I envy them too much.
They have a true insight.
Their laughter, their comic agony, is a reproach against the heavens.
HE SIGHS
That's that, then.
CLEARS THROAT: That's that.
Well, don't say I didn't warn you.
What did I say after Narvik, eh? What did I say after Finland?
Old grumble...
No, we were bound to lose, bound to.
I suppose you're satisfied now, eh?
Eh? You've got what you wanted.
I just said I saw it was coming, that's all.
Ah, shut up and stop arguing! What's the point?
We had bad luck, that's all.
Bad luck? Yes, bad luck.
We won last time. This time, they won.
Next time, it'll be our turn again.
There won't be a next time.
Won't be another war, not in Europe.
We're united now.
United Europe! Oh, aye, as slaves of Hitler.
Look, mate, there had to be a Hitler, didn't there?
Nations are like people, see? They're all out for number one.
But they have to have a leader, somebody who will bring them
together and lick them into shape. Ah, go and play with yourself!
Don't you roil me, mate! I'm talking about peace, I am.
I'm talking about 1,000 years of peace.
We've got to think European now, mates - all of us living together,
appreciating one another, just like one big family.
You agree, don't you, son?
Only one thing I agree about -
the sooner everybody lays down their arms, the better. There you are.
We mustn't make the Germans angry.
They'll start doing things to people if we make them angry.
IN HEAD: The lot of them, every single one of them, is running away.
Everybody's got their escape route.
Schwartz is already becoming a German.
Nippert takes refuge in sleep,
Pinette in anger,
Pierne in innocence.
Luberon stuffs himself with food.
Longin dreams of centuries to come.
And Charlot, a Jew, is planning ways he might live a quiet life
with the Hun.
Each one rapidly assumes an attitude which will allow him
to go on living.
OUT LOUD: You make me sick!
What's the matter with him?!
Don't know. Oh, the teacher's pet!
Mathieu?
Ha! Look at that bloke down there!
He doesn't know what's happened.
We'd better tell him the war's over.
He'll know soon enough.
Oh, God.
It's hot, huh?
Yeah. I feel like a kip.
You have one - time's your own, now, mate.
SINGING IN THE DISTANCE
Jesus wept!
What's up? I can't sleep.
Why not?
I'm all churned-up inside.
Understandable. I'm that angry, I've got to hit somebody.
Otherwise I'll choke.
Well, don't you feel angry?
Yeah.
I haven't had a chance to let off me rifle.
I haven't fired a single bloody shot.
What are you doing? I'm washing me bloody feet, what do you think?
You said we made you sick.
I didn't mean you.
You meant all of us.
Is it me you'd like to hit?
Go on. Hit me. I'll hit back.
We'll have a bloody good dust-up, the pair of us.
Might calm us down.
Wouldn't like to hurt you, mate.
A pity.
Christ, mate!
What size are your trotters?
What? Oh.
Little ones, aren't they?
I'm bloody clever with me feet, you know.
I can open a matchbox with them.
With your toes? Want a bet?
I believe you.
I haven't killed a single sodding German.
It's all been a lot of sodding marching
and waiting to be mopped up.
That's it. Well, it isn't right.
It's not fair. That's the way it goes.
We've been let down by a lot of yellow, shitty, windy bastards.
Come off it, mate. if we'd been put into action,
we'd have behaved exactly the same way.
You speak for yourself, mate. Don't you insult me.
Do you think I'd have pissed off in front of the enemy?
Do you think that of me? No.
I'd have been mowed down where I stood.
So you say. I would have stopped their bullets right there, mate.
It's not my fault what's happened.
I did everything they told me.
I was all trained up, raring to go, to kill the sodding Boche.
Is it my fault they don't know how to use me?
He's such a stocky bugger.
Tough, eager.
Bit by bit, they'll teach him how to conform to the pattern
of the conquered.
They'll bend his body on the fields of Silesia.
They'll have him slaving on some new autobahn of theirs.
They'll fill him with fatigue and heaviness and melancholy.
Defeat is a lesson that has yet to be learned by all of us.
Oh, God, help me. What's up?
How have we lost this war?
What went wrong?
We should have won it. 15 years - we saw it coming.
We should have won it. Why haven't we, then?
Wrong people in government.
There you are.
We get the governments we deserve.
Do you ever bother to vote?
Vote? No. Nor did I.
I had other things to do.
So did I.
WHISTLING
Listen to that tune.
If there was only something we could do.
Such as?
Oh, I don't know. There's bugger all we can do, isn't there? Uh-huh.
Hey. What?
Have I ever showed you a photograph of the missus?
No.
That's what she calls me!
Dolly. I threatened her,
but she still does it.
I don't know, mate, she's got to call you something.
It's cos she's a few years older than me, that's all.
She's attractive.
Think so?
Mind you, she's terrific in bed, you know?
Shag! She does it all roads.
You'd never credit it.
She comes from a good family, you know?
So you told me.
Did I tell you that her dad was the art master at the high school?
Yeah.
Well, they've landed me up shit creek, you know?
Who have? They have. Well, I'm knackered. I can't go home, you see.
Why not? Well, her old man was in the first lot.
Came back with a chest full of medals - Croix de Guerre.
All the sodding danglers.
Goes on about it all the time. Never lets up.
What of it? Well, how can I face them?
You'll sort yourself out.
Never. Never.
I don't want to go home, you see?
Oh, come on, mate. They'll have you with open arms.
That's what you think.
My missus can't get enough of it.
But apart from that, she doesn't think much of me.
It's all for her mother, you see.
If it wasn't for the shags,
she'd despise me.
Got a helluva life to go back to, I have.
Urgh. Come on. Let's go, shall we?
Where? Oh, I dunno. Just, let's get. All right, then.
COW MOOS
SHOUTED MARCHING ORDERS
Our conquerors.
SOLDIER SHOUTS COMMANDS IN GERMAN
How beautiful they are!
How radiant!
Such lovely young boys.
Blue eyes, narrow waists.
Oh, and such wonderfully muscular limbs!
When you compare them with the average French soldier...
..dear me!
Yes, our champions of democracy and freedom
are running for their lives.
But these boys are beautiful -
like angels.
Angels of hate, and fury and extermination.
Just to look at them gives one a thrill.
A delicious thrill all the way from my thighs to my head.
SHOUTS IN GERMAN
This is the victory of arrogance,
of violence, of bad faith.
This is the victory of the earth.
ORDERS CONTINUE
What joy I feel!
It is quite ecstatic.
The devil has come into his own.
The reign of evil is about to begin.
Double Scotch.
Can I take a look?
Of course, monsieur.
The news isn't too good.
Paris has fallen, eh? Mm.
Soda?
Yes, I'm afraid France is finished.
Don't you think so?
One pays for everything sooner or later, monsieur.
Yes. One pays for everything.
France is now paying the price for abandoning our blood relations.
Oh, I see!
You are a French-Canadian?
From Montreal.
You never get any French in here?
A Frenchman, eh?
The gentleman is from Rouen.
He comes in here regular.
You are French, eh?
Yes.
I'd like to buy you a drink.
Oh, thank you.
But the occasion scarcely calls for drinks.
Why? Because of that?
Because of that.
That's why I'm asking you to have a drink with me.
I lived in France for ten years.
My wife and son are still there.
Scotch?
All right.
Soda or straight?
Straight.
One Scotch with soda, one straight.
You are not an Italian, are you?
No, I'm not Italian. Ah.
The Italians are all swine.
Let's talk about the French, eh?
Have you anybody still living there?
Not in Paris, no.
I have some nephews who live in Moulins.
I do not think you have been over here very long, eh?
And what about you?
Me? Ha-ha.
I settled here in 1912.
That's a good while back.
You like it here?
No.
What don't you like?
The people.
Why stay, then?
I am making money.
Ah, you are in business, eh? Mm.
Hairdresser. My shop is two blocks away.
Oh, I go back to France every three years.
I spend two months there.
I was going again this year.
Of course, now this has happened...
..that's that.
Yes.
That's that.
There have been 40 customers in my place this morning.
Some days it's like that.
And all of them wanted haircut,
shampoo and electric massage.
You'd think, wouldn't you,
that they would have said something about my country. Ha.
Well, you can think again.
They just sit there reading their papers, the lot of them,
without saying one word.
And I looked at the headlines while I shaved them.
Some of them have been coming to me for 20 years.
Even they said nothing.
My hand was trembling so, I was afraid I might cut them.
In the end, I put up the shutters and came here.
They don't give a damn.
Oh, it's not that.
They just don't know what to say.
Paris is a name that means something to them.
It's because of that they say nothing.
Americans are like that.
They try not to think.
Well, I drink to France.
To France, no matter what has happened.
I drink to the day the United States comes into the war.
Ha!
What hope!
Same again.
For more than 25 years, I have lived in this country,
and this is the first time I feel a foreigner.
Oh, I know these people.
I have no illusions about them.
But I really thought that somebody would stretch a friendly hand,
or say a word of sympathy.
Did you have any sympathy with the Spaniards?
Huh?
Were you in favour of intervention in Spain?
You are a Spaniard?
Yes.
Huh.
You have had your misfortunes, too.
And the French didn't do much to help us.
No.
And, you see, the Americans don't do anything to help us, either.
People and countries are just alike.
It's every man for himself.
I drink to Spain.
The liberation of France.
Well, I guess I'd better get back to my shop.
The last drink was on me.
No, I see to the lot. Eh? Please.
Thank you.
Same again.
I am drunk.
Oh, bravo.
Haven't you noticed?
Drunk!
You know why I'm drunk? Who cares?
Cos the Huns have taken Paris, that's why.
It's the worse news since 1927.
What happened in 1927?
Sh...
..that's personal.
HE SNIFFLES
Keep an eye on him for a minute, eh?
I'll go get a taxi.
Who is he?
He works on Wall Street.
Is it true he gets drunk because Paris has been taken?
If that's what he says, I guess it is.
But it was the same way last week, because what happened
in the Argentine,
and the week before that, because of the Salt Lake City disaster.
Monsieur, he gets drunk every weekend,
but never without reason, eh?
An American with a conscience.
Wotcha. Wotcha.
Heard the latest, have you?
Ever been had, mate? Ever been had?
They took us in good and proper.
I wouldn't pull nobody's pisser, not over a thing like that.
Give it to me straight.
What is it?
Armistice. Ain't nothing doing.
They've been having us on, stupid buggers.
There's no Armistice? There is no Armistice?
That's it, no bloody Armistice!
What difference does it make?
You'll see, mate.
It'll make all the difference in the world.
MUSIC: La Route est Dure by Georgia Brown
# Les mains se tendent de tous cotes
# Les chaines sont lourdes, puis-je les oter?
# Un seul pas contre la tyrannie
# Une raison d'etre dans toute ma vie
# La route est dure, mais je suis forte
# Mon ame est sure, la peur est morte
# Je sais quoi faire avec la vie
# Quand toute la terre sera affranchie. #