Jean Anouilh wrote the script for this cruel sketch of the stratified world of a provincial French town. Suzy Delair stars as the mistress of the tavern keeper who draws several of the local men into a deadly competition. The spiritual opposites of Delair and her cuckolded boyfriend (Fernand Ledoux) are to be found in an aging, despised aristocrat (Paul Bernard) who is secretly loved by the hunchbacked servant at the inn (Arlette Thomas). “Anouilh's script is a tangled skein of sexual jealousies, intrigues, misalliances, but throughout Pattes Blanches, the themes of eros and problems of social caste are so intertwined as to be indivisible.... Visually, Pattes Blanches is a distinctive blend of the naturalistic and the willfully stylized....” (Stephen Harvey, Museum of Modern Art)