GRAND ILLUSION [FrenCH: LA GRANDE ILLUSION] 137
Armée de l’Air (air force). Pinsard, a much- decorated ace with 27 victories in air
combat, was shot down 8 February 1915 and sent to a German POW fa cil i ty. He
made several failed escape attempts over a year before fi nally succeeding by dig-
ging a tunnel under the prison wall with another inmate. Renoir and Pinsard lost
touch after the war but fortuitously reconnected in 1934 when Renoir was shoot-
ing a film near Pinsard’s air base outside Marseille. Renoir asked Pinsard to recount
his exploits (already widely reported in newspapers during the war), compiled notes
about them, and entrusted his notes to Belgian screenwriter Charles Spaak as mate-
rial for a screenplay. After Renoir wrote a treatment entitled Les evasions de Capi-
taine Maréchal in the fall of 1935, Spaak developed a screenplay that drew on
Pinsard’s stories, Renoir’s own recollections, and other memoirs written by mem-
bers of the League of War time Escapees. After Renoir had cast Jean Gabin— France’s
biggest box office draw—to play Maréchal, he was able to secure a producer/
distributer: Réalisation d’art cinématographique (RAC), a new firm founded by
Albert Pinkovitch and Frank Rollmer. Before filming started casting, characteriza-
tions, and the script continued to evolve. The role of de Boeldieu, an aristocratic
officer, was offered to Louis Jouvet and Pierre Richard- Willm before fi nally going
to Pierre Fresnay. A late script change involved turning Maréchal’s fellow prison
escapee into a foreign- born Jewish officer named Rosenthal— a daring move in an
era of rampant anti- Semitism and xenophobia. Another audacious move on Renoir’s
part was to cast Marcel Dalio ( later, the croupier in Casablanca) as Rosenthal, an
actor usually typecast as a shady or weak minor character. Most significant, though,
was the last- minute casting of Erich Von Stroheim as Von Rauffenstein, the German
fighter pi lot turned prison commandant—an entirely new character that necessi-
tated a complete script overhaul by Renoir and Spaak, his assistant Jacques Becker,
and German technical advisor Carl Koch just days before shooting was scheduled
to start.
Production
Filming of La grande illusion began on 13 February 1937, with a month of exterior
shooting in the Alsace region (northeastern France). The first prison camp scenes
were shot in the artillery barracks at Colmar built by Wilhelm II, Haut- Rhin (Upper
Rhine), and the Wintersborn prison scenes were shot at the Château du Haut Koe-
nigsbourg, Orschwiller, Bas- Rhin (Lower Rhine). The last snowy scene of the film
was shot in Chamonix Valley near Mont Blanc. Location shooting was supplemented
by studio work at Studios Éclair and Studios de Boulogne- Billancourt/SFP in Paris;
the 78- day shoot wrapped on 15 May 1937.
Plot Summary
During the First World War, two French aviators— Capt. de Boeldieu (Pierre
Fresnay), an aristocrat, and Lt. Maréchal ( Jean Gabin), a Paris auto mechanic—
are shot down behind enemy lines by Rittmeister von Rauffenstein (Erich von
Stroheim), a German aristocrat. They survive the crash, but are captured. Upon
returning to base, Rauffenstein sends a subordinate to invite the French flyers to
lunch. During the meal, Rauffenstein and Boeldieu discover they inhabit the same
aristocratic social circles. Boeldieu and Maréchal are then taken to a POW camp