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The Cross of Lorraine (1943)
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Overview
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Release Date:
12 November 1943 (USA)
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Plot:
A group of French soldiers during WWII are captured by Nazis troops and sent to a military prison. There they will have to make use of his best resources to keep alive... and sane, while at the same time scheming a way out. | add synopsis
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Light and shadow in every sense
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Cast
(Complete credited cast) | Jean-Pierre Aumont | ... | Paul (as Jean Pierre Aumont) |
 | Gene Kelly | ... | Victor |
| Cedric Hardwicke | ... | Father Sebastian (as Sir Cedric Hardwicke) |
| Richard Whorf | ... | François |
| Joseph Calleia | ... | Rodriguez |
 | Peter Lorre | ... | Sergeant Berger |
 | Hume Cronyn | ... | Duval |
| William Roy | ... | Louis (as Billy Roy) |
| Tonio Selwart | ... | Major Bruhl |
| Jack Lambert | ... | Jacques |
| Wallace Ford | ... | Pierre |
| Donald Curtis | ... | Marcel |
| Jack Edwards Jr. | ... | René |
 | Richard Ryen | ... | Lieutenant Schmidt |
| Frederick Giermann | ... | Corporal Daxer |
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Runtime:
90 min
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1.37 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Mono (Western Electric Sound System)
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Discuss this movie with other users on IMDb message board for The Cross of Lorraine (1943)| Recent Posts (updated daily) | User |
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| Where can I see this movie? | kelly-billy |
| Tonio Selwart -- 106 years old??? | oldmotem |
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Very effective American propaganda piece made in the beginning of the war and centered around a couple of handfuls of French soldiers capitulating at Marshall Pétain's order and being made prisoners of war in the German part of Alsace.
Director Tay Garnett was an acknowledged master of light and shadow, and not just in the cinematographic sense. Lots of issues are at stake here, and although all the characters are somewhat larger than life, the hesitant lawyer, wonderfully, luminously played by Jean-Pierre Aumont, and the cabdriver, acted by a young, doe-eyed Gene Kelly, both help to give human texture to the admittedly rather formulaic plotline, and neither is a hero in the textbook Hollywood sense. The most interesting conflict in the film would be how to deal with the Hume Cronyn character, a French soldier who sympathizes with the Nazis and serves as a translater / snitch in the POW camp. Should he be killed without a trial, or would that, even in wartime, be a violation of basic French principles of jurisprudence and democracy?
'The Cross of Lorraine' is a very, very good film and a far cry from American WW2 movies we see today, they are all much more banal and onesided.
The film was obviously inspired by Jean Renoir's ultimate antiwar movie, 'The Grand Illusion', and in its turn inspired Stuart Rosenberg's tough prison movie 'Cool Hand Luke'.