Promoted to wrestling champion by chance, Tonin, known as le Bourreau de l'Ardèche, moves to Paris. He is quickly snapped up by Monsieur Bob, a self-styled manager who, in reality, hides his dealings under the cover of a nightclub, but who is also Tonin's regimental buddy. So Tonin acts as a front...
Paris rendered as a labyrinth of intrigues. Filmed in Parisian parks and on a terrace, LE DIVERTISSEMENT foreshadows the labyrinthine walks that would be a part of Rivette’s cinema, in which the characters look for, follow and find each other like in a romantic scavenger hunt.
The corpse of a man is discovered in Bercy. The murderer, his wife, acted out of fear of sexual diseases that her husband had contracted with a prostitute.