An ornithologist mistaken for an explosives expert is sent alone into a small French town during WWI to investigate a garbled report from the resistance about a bomb which the departing Germans have set to blow up a weapons cache. He arrives to find a very eccentric group of townspeople, inmates of the local insane asylum, as it turns out, who have stepped into the characters of the fleeing villagers. Philippe de Broca directs from the screenplay by Daniel Boulanger; from an idea by Maurice Bessy. Produced by Michelle & Philippe de Broca. Music by Georges Delerue. from Lopert Pictures Corporation, redubbed in English for its 1979 reissue by United Artists. Italy release: April 1, 1967 / U.S. release: June 19, 1967