Blanche Denège

François Donge, a rich industrialist and womaniser, meets a girl nicknamed Bébé who he marries. Ten years later, poisoned by his wife and dying in hospital, he recalls his married life and understands how his wife who adored him suffered from his many affairs and indifference.

After being hurt in the face, Count de Roger Tinchebraye is forced to hide his disfigured face behind a leather mask. Dispirited for a while, he decides to become a Casanova-like seductor. When he meets true love, cynical Roger does not believe in it and lets pure Judith marry an old marquis. But once Judith's husband dies, he sees Judith again, shows her his disfigured face, which does not discourage the young woman from loving him. Nevertheless, he distances himself from her forever

Noël is a bachelor who inherits a matrimonial agency. After contemplating selling it, he chooses to manage it.

The short stories of Guy de Maupassant enjoyed a renaissance in the early 1950s, thanks in great part to the Max Ophuls production Le Plaisir. In Trois Femmes, three De Maupassant stories are dramatized, each conveying the central theme of women falling in love. In the first, a black female carnival entertainer causes an uproar when she falls in love with a white soldier. In the second, a young bride is pressured into having a baby to collect a huge inheritance. And in the final episode, a pregnant girl is "adopted" and protected by a small circle of friends. In standard De Maupassant fashion, each of the three stories in Trois Femmes is capped by a surprise twist.

Catherine, 18, loved Jean, a young accountant, who loved her in return. And yet, one morning, two policemen find their dead bodies on a stretch of waste ground. The case is obvious: the two young people have killed themselves. But why? Chief Inspector Ernest Plonche, feeling upset, decides to investigate personally.

Robert Montfort, happily married to Solange, is his parents-in-law's pet aversion though. To them he is a punk, a good for nothing, a small-time, untalented poet! Robert, who is more gifted than what they think, manages, following a workmate's recommendation, to debut as an entertainer in a nightclub and -even better- to please the audience. Not daring tell the truth to Solange he starts leading a double life, being Robert Montfort in the daytime and Jean Rigobert at night. Of course his wife wonders what is going on and worries about his regular night outings. Only too happy, her parents incite her to have a divorce. Fortunately, all comes right in the end.

Father Benoît would like one of his twins to take over his inn, at 3 plates. But his ancillary ambitions are not commensurate with his last 3. Bernard is also in love with Hélène, daughter of Colonel Flouc de La Donzelle. He dreams of becoming an actor and goes to Paris to find a job. Difficult beginnings since from the theater, he goes to the cabaret, then to the radio, without success. In the final scene, the 3 brothers meet, which gives rise to a series of gags during the wedding.

Thanks to a bit of string-pulling by his aunt, Jean du Bois d'Ombelles, a young recruit who has blue blood in his veins, hopes to go through a nice and comfortable military service. Unfortunately he becomes Corporal Bourrache's pet aversion. Nevertheless, against all expectations, Jean ends up taking a liking for military life.

Léon Ménard, the village verger, is a decent young man whose hobby is to play the accordion. One day he is fired for having accompanied Mary Pinson, a singer deemed scandalous by the right-minded parishioners. Blinded by his love for Mary, Léon follows her to Paris where he becomes her plaything. With Mary's complicity, a gang of swindlers make him the puppet proprietor of a night club. But Léon can't live in a fool's paradise forever and soon finds himself on the street, forsaken and desperate. Luckily, the manager of a circus notices him while he is busking and he hires Léon at once. Not only will success come to him but he will win the love of sweet Solange.

1944, France experiences its last days of German occupation. A microcosm representative of the various attitudes adopted during this troubled period, some heroic, others less brilliant, the Grégeois family, scattered by the war, will strengthen its ties according to the Allied advance on the territory and the liberation of Paris, with its joys but also its sorrows, because not all of its members will survive the relative chaos that will characterize this end of the world war.