Now Where Did the Seventh Company Get to?

In 1940, as the French army retreats before the German advance, the 7th company loses contact with the rest of its unit and is taken prisoner. Three soldiers who had been sent out on a scouting patrol escape capture: Sergeant-Chief Chaudard, a hardware shop manager in civilian life, and the soldiers Pithivier and Tassin. Stranded behind enemy lines, the three would rather stay out of the fighting altogether, but their attempts to find food and keep clear of the Germans repeatedly go wrong. An air force lieutenant, Duvauchel, whose plane has been shot down, pushes them toward using a captured truck to rejoin their own troops.

The film is a French war comedy directed by Robert Lamoureux, who also wrote the screenplay and appears as Colonel Blanchet. It was his second film as director, following Ravishing in 1960, and was produced by Alain Poiré for Gaumont International. Pierre Mondy, Jean Lefebvre and Aldo Maccione lead the cast as the three soldiers, with Erik Colin as Lieutenant Duvauchel and Alain Doutey as Carlier. A sequel, The Seventh Company Outdoors, followed in 1977.

Audience response has been solid rather than enthusiastic: on IMDb the film holds 6.9 out of 10 from around 2,800 votes, while on TMDB it scores 7.3 out of 10 from 395 votes. Its reputation rests on the three leads and their comic misadventures in occupied France.