Soft Beds, Hard Battles

In German-occupied Paris, British Major Robinson finds an unlikely refuge inside Madame Grenier's brothel, a house whose clientele includes members of the occupying forces. What begins as concealment gradually turns the establishment into an unconventional outpost of resistance, where Grenier and the women around her become involved in actions against German officers. Soldiers, priests, intelligence figures and collaborators move through a farcical wartime plot in which disguise, sexual intrigue and clandestine operations repeatedly undermine the supposed authority of military power.

Peter Sellers provides the film's central comic device by assuming several contrasting identities across the conflict. His roles include Major Robinson, Général Latour, Gestapo officer Herr Schroeder, Adolf Hitler and the Japanese Prince Kyoto, among others. Rather than separating hero and enemy through different performers, the film repeatedly returns to Sellers under new accents, uniforms and national identities, turning performance itself into part of its satire as the Resistance becomes entangled with increasingly elaborate schemes.

Directed by Roy Boulting, Soft Beds, Hard Battles belongs to a distinct strand of 1970s British comedy that approaches the Second World War through irreverence rather than solemn reconstruction. Its comedy targets military hierarchy, political pretension and the absurdities of wartime authority, while its unusual multi-role showcase gives the film a particular place in Sellers's screen career and in the later work of the Boulting filmmaking partnership.