"Les Grandes Manœuvres" was Clair's first film in colour, a medium he had wanted to use since his time in England in the late 1930s, because, he stated, "it would enable him to keep reality at a distance" The production designer, Léon Barsacq, created sets in which muted colours were dominant, with furniture and accessories in black or white, and costumes mainly in beige or brown; they even sprayed the leaves of trees with yellow so that their shade of green would not be too bright.The only bold colour permitted was red, the red of the military uniforms.