sun 14 feb

2.00pm

France/USA | 1965 | b&w | 170 mins | dir. René Clément, with Orson Welles, Alain Delon, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Kirk Douglas, Anthony Perkins, Simone Signoret, Yves Montand, Jean-Louis Trintignant | cert. PG

The film, whose title refers to Adolf Hitler's question to his chief of staff Alfred Jodl on the eve of the liberation of Paris in August 1944, recounts the liberation by U.S. troops and rival branches of the French Resistance (Communist and Gaullist) and the Free French Forces. Military governor of Paris General Dietrich von Choltitz had been ordered by Hitler to destroy the city rather than let it fall undamaged into the hands of the Allies, but he disobeyed.