Paul Clarus, a French actor, is chatting with his fellow actors (the "
Molière Players") as they put on their makeup before a performance. He reminisces about a very unpleasant
Vichy official, the Chef de la Sûreté, whom he knew when he was part of the
Resistance on the island of
Madagascar during the
Second World War. The events on Madagascar are shown in
flashback. Paul Clarus pretended to be loyal to the Vichy official, while he simultaneously worked as the head of the Resistance movement. He ran an illegal pro-Resistance radio station "Madagascar Libre", and helped arrange numerous boats to take loyal Frenchmen out of the island to safety. Finally when the Vichy government falls, we see that the Vichy official is nothing but a
turncoat; in his office he rapidly replaces a portrait of Marshal
Philippe Pétain with a portrait of
Queen Victoria, and he changes his bottle of
Vichy water for bottles of
Scotch and
soda water. == Cast ==