The film stars Simone Signoret (married at the time to Allégret, although the marriage came to an end soon after), Bernard Blier and Jane Marken.

Manèges is noted for the exceptionally harsh and cynical manner in which Allégret delineates the characters of his two female leads, and has been accused of being misogynistic in tone.

As Dora is taken to the operating theatre, her mother takes vicious pleasure in informing Robert – who has been reflecting with sadness about happy times and the prospect of losing his wife – that the marriage has been a sham from the start.

With the riding school business recently failing, Dora had decided that she had taken Robert for as much as she could, and had been planning to leave him for François, a richer lover who could further her social-climbing ambitions.

Robert states his intention to abandon her to her fate, leaving the mother alone with the prospect of having to care for her disabled daughter in straitened financial circumstances.