A Day in the Country

Partie de campagne (; English: A Day in the Country) is a 1946 French featurette written and directed by Jean Renoir. The film is based on the short story "Une partie de campagne" (1881) by Guy de Maupassant, who was a friend of Renoir's father, the renowned painter Auguste Renoir. It chronicles a love affair over a single summer afternoon in 1860 along the banks of the Seine. Renoir never finished filming due to weather problems, but producer Pierre Braunberger turned the material into a release in 1946, ten years after it was shot. Joseph Burstyn released the film in the U.S. in 1950. Plot Monsieur Dufour (André Gabriello), a shop-owner from Paris, takes his family for a day of relaxation in the country. When they stop for lunch at the roadside restaurant of Poulain (Jean Renoir), two young men there, Henri (Georges D'Arnoux) and Rodolphe (Jacques B. Brunius), take an interest in Dufour's daughter Henriette (Sylvia Bataille) and wife Madame Dufour (Jane Marken). They scheme to get the two women off alone with them. They offer to row them along the river in their skiffs, while they divert Dufour and his shop assistant and future son-in-law, Anatole (Paul Temps), by lending them some fishing poles. Though Rodolphe had arranged beforehand to take Henriette, Henri maneuvers it so that she gets into his skiff. Rodolphe then good-naturedly settles for Madame Dufour. As Henri rows, Henriette expresses her enthusiasm for the countryside. Henri suggests that she could come visit again, on her own, by train if necessary, and offers to meet her. Henriette says that her father would never permit it.