"German Or French, duty is duty"

Rating: 9/10 (28 June 2011)

Although World War I was one of the great exercises in futility hence the title of this film, Grand Illusion sustains the proposition that people do not like being prisoners, be it wartime or for civilian offenses. That they will try to escape is inevitable.
Consider John Sturges classic The Great Escape. Unlike these French prisoners in the first World War in the second these people want to get back and get into the fight against an enemy of civilization itself. Jean Gabin and his peers just want out of a new escape proof prison camp which is an old castle replete with battlements and turrets and quite a drop to the ground. Their host at the citadel prison camp is Erich Von Stroheim who is similarly disillusioned.
Von Stroheim strikes up a friendship of sorts with Pierre Fresnay who unlike his two fellow planners in escape is a professional soldier just like Von Stroheim. Fresnay is of the aristocracy and Von Stroheim is a German Junker, the landed gentry of which Otto Von Bismarck was the chief representative. Fresnay's death scene is quite touching.
The three amigos among the prisoners are Gabin who is a working class stiff, Fresnay, and Marcel Dalio who is Jewish and has some wealth to him, but because of his religion can't crack the French upper crust. Fresnay's death allows Gabin and Dalio to break free from Von Stroheim's custody. What happens then is as Paul Harvey used to say, the rest of the story.
One part of that story is Dita Parlo, a German farm woman who inexplicably shelters them. Her family has been decimated by the First World War and she also has few illusions. What goes on with Gabin and her could never be shown in Hollywood because of the omnipresent Code. But this is the French cinema and the plain fact is the woman has needs and Gabin looks more than capable of fulfilling them. Nothing that frank would EVER have been shown on the American cinema of the time.
If there were an Oscar category for Best Foreign Language film in 1938, Grand Illusion probably would have won. As it was it was given a rare honor of being a nominee for Best Picture that year, but lost to You Can't Take It With You. Jean Renoir was sadly ignored for Best Director however.
Still Grand Illusion remains quite the high point in his career and that of Jean Gabin. After over 70 years it still is a classic in both entertainment and in message content.