A meek little bank clerk finds fame and fortune when he begins getting lessons from an impoverished second-rate novelist. Soon the clerk is wowing the Parisians with his ability to make women swoon, and for his talent for attracting money.

The great American critic Andrew Sarris once dubbed Michel Deville “the French Lubitsch,” and a shared lightness of touch is in ample evidence in Love at the Top. With a pair of nimble leads in Jean-Louis Trintignant and Romy Schneider, this playful sex comedy mines the spiritual from the physical.