In 1963 Jean Eustache failed in an attempt to make a short film called 'La Soirée', although the year after he made Les Mauvaises fréquentations, a film 38 minutes long. In it can be seen vaguely similar themes to what was to become his masterpiece, La Maman et la putain, but this time with two young men more down-at-heel but making money (this time illegally) from a woman. Cafés feature prominently, although neither men has any pretence to intellectual sophistication.
The story: one Sunday two dubious characters go in search of a girl. They find one in Montmartre, approach her and discover she's going dancing with a girlfriend, so they join her, although the girlfriend doesn't turn up. They go for a drink elsewhere and one discovers that she's separated with two children. They go looking for another dancehall and find Robinson, where they sit down with a drink but the girl is invited to dance by an older type the girl doesn't like but she accepts because she can't see any other way out. On the third time the same guy asks her to dance the two men get tired, quietly take her purse from her bag, walk out and then run. In the purse are five 'sacs' (fifty francs), so they take the taller guy's motorbike, go into another café and order two whiskies: the waiter, uncertain, says they're 2.50 francs each, they shrug, drink, order two beers, go though the contents of the wallet, share the money and leave. The following Sunday they leave home in search of a new conquest.
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