"The Rules of the Game" is remembered as a commentary on the moral callousness of the European upper class and their servants just before the beginning of World War II. While making the film, Renoir knew a new world war was coming; he later said there was a sense of it in film, and wrote "it is a war film and yet there is no reference to the war." This sense of doom began just before shooting started in January when Barcelona fell to Franco and throughout the production when Prime Minister of France Édouard Daladier recognized Francoist Spain, Italy annexed Albania and Adolf Hitler prepared his Polish invasion. Renoir articulated this unmentioned theme of the film by saying: