SON OF NORMANDY

French attitudes and traditions were shaken by the apprehension of the years immediately preceding the war, and this is a story of the dislocation of just such attitudes and traditions. Pierre, conservative, substantial, Catholic -- and accepting the inevitability of the monotony of his marriage to Genevieve, falls in love with an English girl, Margaret an artist, who is spending a summer on the Norman farm which is his due instead of inherited family estates. Margaret becomes his mistress and when Genevieve refuses to discuss divorce, and the sons become contemptuous, Pierre decides to throw over everything and start fresh with Margaret somewhere else. And then she is killed. And Pierre enlists to die in this war. Story and situations are unremarkable; the picture of rural France on the eve of war is well indicated.