138 GRAND ILLUSION [FrenCH: LA GRANDE ILLUSION]
at Hallbach, where they meet a raucous group of French POWs who stage an
impromptu vaudeville- type per for mance, complete with cross- dressing, after
German soldiers take over Fort Douaumont at the beginning of the Battle of
Verdun. As the POWs perform, news spreads that the French have taken back
the fort. Maréchal shuts down the per for mance, and the French prisoners sing
“La Marseillaise.” Boeldieu and Maréchal oversee the creation of an escape tun-
nel, but before they can complete their work, the prisoners are transferred to sepa-
rate camps. Unable to speak En glish, Maréchal cannot share information about
the escape route, and Boeldieu and Maréchal are consistently moved around from
one camp to the next. After a series of escape attempts, they fi nally arrive in Win-
tersborn, a supposedly escape- proof mountain fortress- prison commanded by
Rauffenstein, who has been hurt during battle, promoted, and given a post-
ing away from the front— much to his chagrin. At Wintersborn, Boeldieu and
Maréchal are re united with Rosenthal (Marcel Dalio), a wealthy naturalized
French Jew who offers food to his compatriots. Boeldieu comes up with an escape
idea; he volunteers to create a diversion to distract the guards so that Maréchal
and Rosenthal can escape. After the POWs stage a ruckus, the guards order them
to move to the courtyard. The guards realize that Boeldieu is absent from theErich von Stroheim (left), as German fighter ace Rittmeister von Rauffenstein, greets
captured World War I French aviators Captain de Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay, right) and
Lieutenant Maréchal ( Jean Gabin, middle) just after shooting them down, in an early
scene from Jean Renoir’s La grande illusion (1937). (Photofest)