[3] Renoir shot his film in Austria in 1961 from Jacques Perret's book based on his own prisoner of war experiences.

[6] The story serves as a companion piece to the director's 1937 film, Grand Illusion, once more bringing together men from across the broad social spectrum of French society to depict one man's Sisyphean efforts to escape captivity in a German POW camp.

His last foray, with two companions, uses the trick of measuring the roadway through the camp gates and then disappearing once in open country.

Escaping cross country, they encounter a farmer who proves to be another French escapee: he gives them food and describes a safe route to the frontier.

The Corporal and his remaining companion part on a bridge in Paris, free men among friends in the country they love.