Grand Illusion
Grand Illusion (French: La Grande Illusion) is a 1937 war film directed by Jean Renoir, who co-wrote the screenplay with Charles Spaak.
Not to be confused with the LP by Styx.
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Tropes used in Grand Illusion include:
- Aristocrats Are Evil: Averted.
- Captivity Harmonica: One of the guards gives Maréchal one when he's imprisoned in a Cooler.
- Crowning Music: The battle of Die Wacht am Rhein and La Marseillaise reflecting the battle of Verdun.
- Disguised in Drag: The British officers participating in the variety show in the first camp.
- During the War
- Ear Worm: Joseph Cosma's main theme.
- Gentleman and a Scholar: Lieutenant Demolder, who spends his time translating Pindar from Ancient Greek in his free time.
- Glove Slap: Does not actually occur, but their white gloves are clearly important to de Boeldieu and von Rauffenstein.
- Great Escape
- Heroic Sacrifice
- Hey, It's That Guy!: Marcel Dalio (Rosenthal) later played Émile, the croupier, in Casablanca.
- Hey, Let's Put on a Show
- I Gave My Word
- Improbable Aiming Skills
- Irony: Elsa's male relatives were all killed in the greatest German victories of the war.
- Nice Jewish Boy: Rosenthal.
- Officer and a Gentleman: Rauffenstein and de Boeldieu crank this up to 150.
- Prussia: The film avoids many stereotypes - von Rauffenstein is cultured and cosmopolitan, fluent in French and English, and the NCO in the first prison camp good-naturedly suffers the imprisoned officers calling him "Arthur".
- Token Minority: One of the French officers in the first POW camp is Senegalais.
- Tunnel King: The civil engineer.
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story: The character of Maréchal was based on a French fighter pilot called Pinsard whom Jean Renoir had met during the war and who had made multiple escapes from German POW camps.
- The Von Trope Family
- We Need a Distraction
- World War I: The effects seen in Germany are that every able-bodied male is called up (the POW camp guards are old Landsturm militiamen), food shortages etc.
- Worthy Opponent