The film showed a more accurate depiction of the ratio of collaborators to resistance, unlike many other French-produced films, which suggest there were very few collaborators because of the sense of betrayal they would have felt.
In 1973-74, Louis Malle co-wrote the script with the then 27-year-old Patrick Modiano. In 2014, Modiano was awarded the Nobel prize for literature, largely in recognition of his many works depicting France under the Nazi occupation.
According to Pauline Kael, the film "is a long, close look at the banality of evil; it is -not incidentally- one of the least banal movies ever made. The actions are handled plainly, with restraint-with no attempt to shock anyone, or impress anyone; the actions are what we knew already. There's no special magic involved in the movie-making technique-it's simple, head-on, unforced. The movie is the boy's face. The magic is in the intense curiosity and intelligence behind the film-in Malle's perception that the answers to our questions about how people with no interest in politics become active participants in brutal torture are to be found in Lucien's plump-cheeked, narrow-eyed face, and that showing us what this boy doesn't react to can be the most telling of all."
Louis Malle later admitted that much of the picture's ultimate impact was due to its star, Pierre Blaise. Malle knew that the character had to be played by a man from the area where the story takes place, and he had to have an accurate accent. So Malle started fishing for a performer during a series of casting calls that didn't go well - that is, until Blaise walked in. But Blaise wasn't entirely taken with the filmmaking process when shooting began. He told Malle after the first few days of filming that he was going home. Malle and an assistant had to talk him into sticking around. Malle determined that Blaise, who was only 17 at the time, didn't like how everyone on the set ordered him around all day long. Malle gathered his main technical collaborators together, and said, "...Starting Monday, you're going to treat him as Alain Delon. Don't think of him as Pierre Blaise, this little peasant of seventeen. Think of him as Belmondo. You have to be really cautious. He's got the whole film on his shoulders; he's so much more important than any one of us." And from then on, things went better. He started enjoying being the main man on the set.
This film is part of the Criterion Collection, spine #329.