Two French soldiers -- blue-collar Maréchal (Jean Gain) and genteel de Boieldieu (Pierre Fresnay) -- strive to overcome their differences while plotting their escape from a German prison camp during World War I. Meanwhile, de Boieldieu finds a kindred spirit among his captors in a patrician German officer (Erich von Stroheim). Jean Renoir directs this genre classic, considered one of the first prison-break movies ever made.