Suzanne Verrier, a dancer of mediocre talent at the Paris Opéra, is the mistress of an elderly aristocrat and conservative politician, the Comte de Montoire-Grandpré, who uses his influence to assist her career.

The success of Jacques Feyder's adaptation of Thérèse Raquin brought him an invitation from MGM to work in Hollywood, but before he left, he agreed to one further film in France for Alexandre Kamenka's Albatros company which was in economic difficulties.

The production was filmed principally at the Billancourt studios during the summer of 1928, and it features some elaborate set designs by Lazare Meerson (including a reconstruction of the Chambre des Deputés, a stylish Parisian town house, and rehearsal areas at the Opéra).

Some politicians felt that their fictional equivalents were made up to resemble them rather too realistically; and in one scene a député falls asleep during a debate in the Chamber and dreams happily that the other members have all been transformed into ballerinas in tutus.

[8] A correspondent for The New York Times later in the year explained the persistent sensitivities in France: "The fall of the Briand Government last month perhaps gave an extra fillip, in the mind of Paris, to 'Les Nouveau Messieurs', since the story concerns the collapse of a Cabinet and the substitution of an extreme Radical Ministry.

At the houses where it is showing now a careful foreword is thrown on the screen, asserting that no characters are drawn from life and even explaining that the interior of the Chamber of Deputies, where some of the drama and much of the comedy of the picture occur, was constructed at the Feyder studios."