Paris After Dark

French underground activists begin printing and distributing leaflets urging resistance to the Nazis. They target a factory manufacturing German tanks, planning covert sabotage to slow production. The effort creates a tense hush around the assembly lines as workers look for chances to act without being detected.

A factory worker who distributes leaflets is shot and killed when caught in the act, shocking his fellow workers. His girlfriend Colette runs a restaurant and has to pretend not to care when two German customers discuss the murder. The incident raises the stakes and deepens resolve among the resistance.

Yvonne Blanchard and Dr. Andre Marbel become the ringleaders of the resistance, organizing secret meetings. They set up gatherings at the doctor’s house and in the basement of Colette’s restaurant to stay hidden from the Germans. The network coordinates vaccinations, leaflets, and discussions with factory workers.

Jean Blanchard, a former French soldier, is released from a German prison camp. He finds pamphlets hidden in his wife’s dresser and confronts her; she lies about their purpose and denies knowledge of their whereabouts. He burns the pamphlets and urges her to reveal the other nurse, escalating suspicion and distrust between them.

The German commander decides to move machines and many workers to Germany to cut sabotage. He asks Doctor Marbel to vaccinate the workers as a pretext for control. The plan triggers an emergency underground meeting to plan a response.

An emergency underground meeting is held at the doctor’s house, attended by Yvonne and other organizers. Jean follows Yvonne to the meeting, misreading her actions and becoming jealous. When she returns home, she goes to the hospital for an emergency surgery, trying to keep the gathering secret from him.

The next morning, Yvonne assists with the vaccination in the line when George, her younger brother, shows up with plans to leave France and join De Gaulle. His parents and Jean try to dissuade him, but he persists, claiming that friends will help. The tension emphasizes the pull of exile against family loyalty.

Jean informs Luigi, the barber, about George’s plan, not knowing Luigi is taking money from the Germans as an informer. Later at Colette’s restaurant, Luigi flirts with Colette and tries to follow her into a secret passage to the basement. Colette signals the others to disperse, and Jean runs into Luigi in the alley as they are leaving with Yvonne and Marbel.

That night George returns home with the family gun; Yvonne disarms him but fears the plan to escape. He insists the underground will help him, but she remains skeptical of those outside the movement. The episode heightens the sense of danger around the family and the cause.

The next day, Jean watches a Gestapo agent leave Luigi’s barbershop and realizes Luigi has betrayed them. He learns Luigi had supplied information about George and the resistance. The net tightens as Gestapo steps up surveillance of the workers at the factory.

George and his friends are caught on the road and brought back to the factory, where the workers have learned of Allied landings in North Africa and initiate a work stoppage. George delivers an inflammatory speech before Colonel Pirosh’s soldiers and is shot. The Colonel is wounded, and 50 factory workers are taken into Gestapo custody.

Colonel Pirosh survives only if the doctor can operate; he promises to free the workers if successful. Nurse Yvonne assists but briefly hands the wrong instrument in a bid to kill the patient, then corrects herself when the doctor insists. The operation rests on a razor-thin margin of error and trust.

Luigi reappears at Colette’s restaurant, still flirting, and Jean follows him to the basement. In a struggle, Jean knocks Luigi through a false door and chokes him to death, revealing the basement as the Underground headquarters. Colette and other resistance members arrive to join the fight.

The Nazi colonel survives and demands that all 50 workers be killed unless the shooter is handed over. The doctor objects, and Jean writes a note confessing that he shot Colonel Pirosh, telling the doctor he plans to surrender to save the workers. He shows the doctor the gun to prove the bullet matches, and a plan forms to evacuate the leaders by a British plane that night.

The underground leaders send a secret transmission to Paris declaring that France is still fighting and the resistance endures. Yvonne is set to be on the plane to safety, but Jean contemplates his fate as the hours pass. A final broadcast reaches Paris as Jean stands before the Gestapo, embodying defiance and hope for the cause.