The Smoking Contest

Sparks fly in this amusing bi-lingual love story between an American man who can’t stand to be in smoking environments and a French woman who simply refuses to give up cigarettes. He’s a writer, she a stage director trained in the Russian theatre, but at present with no dramatic company of her own. They meet in Paris at a time when smoking has been banned in France but also at the very moment a well-financed commercial effort is afoot to bring back the past. Cigarette and cosmetic companies unite to rekindle the joie de vivre of smoking in the public’s consciousness. In a homage the past, the business interests stage a national smoking contest for women and our heroine decides to become a contestant –much to the irritation of her American lover. Their relationship is already in distress as our heroine suspects that her lover has betrayed her with at least two women.