After returning from lecturing in London in January 1939, Renoir left Paris to work on a script. He told a reporter that his next film would be "A precise description of the bourgeois of our age." Renoir, Carl Koch and Zwoboda went to Marlotte to work on the script. Because Renoir wanted to allow the actors to improvise their dialogue, only one-third of the film was scripted and the rest was a detailed outline. Renoir later said that his "ambition when I made the film was to illustrate this remark: we are dancing on a volcano." Renoir called the film a "divertissement" for its use of baroque music and aspects of classical French comedies. Renoir's initial inspiration by "Les Caprices de Marianne" led to the film's four main characters correlating with those of the play; a virtuous wife, a jealous husband, a despairing lover and an interceding friend. In both the play and the film the interceding friend is named Octave. Octave is also the only of the four characters inspired by the play that shares traits with its counterpart. In both works, Octave is a "sad clown" full of self-doubt and self-pity. The characters' names constantly changed between versions of the script; Renoir said that in an early draft, André Jurieux was an orchestra conductor rather than an aviator.