Le Splendid. The name of a hotel written in capital letters on the front of this majestic building in the centre of Dax, a spa town in the Landes. For everyone, from Sacha Guitry, who went into exile there in the middle of the Second World War, to the toreros who prayed to all the saints there before donning their suits of light for yet another bullfight, Le Splendid has been, and remains, a mythical and fascinating place.

Drawing on numerous sources, from archive material to the revelations of a former bartender, this film transports us back into the past and the splendours of the 1930s.