Kitschy French music over the sound track inflates the Gallic jest to the max (Altman felt the film would be too inconsequential without it), as do the credits, which acknowledge the codirection of Robert Vieux-homme and the producing work of Robert Oeufenweiler.

You must understand the rules of football in 1939. There was no platooning, so each man played both offense and defense.

Compound words contrast with words built up by the use of affixes. Thus, for example, re-use, substandard, hyperventilate, prehistoric and pro-communist woud not usually be counted as compound words ...

[T]hese were mostly Russian intellectuals, hard-core Stalinists, and democratic socialists . . . whose book-lined apartments were filled with leftist tracts and records by the Red Army Chorus and the black American Communist culture hero Paul Robeson.