The Cross of Lorraine

The Cross of Lorraine is directed by Tay Garnett {The Postman Always Rings Twice/A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court} & it stars Jean-Pierre Aumont and Gene Kelly and was adapted from Hans Habe's novel A Thousand Shall Fall. The story is about French prisoners of war held by the Germans in World War II.

Yep, sure enough it's a propaganda piece, yep, sure enough it's low on budget, and, yep, the outcome will hold no surprises for anyone aware of propaganda based cinema. But don't let that in any way detract from what a tightly scripted and acted picture this is. Coming as it did in 1943 one could be forgiven for expecting a watered down tale of prisoners under duress; rising up and flipping the bird to those dam dirty Nazis. Yet, and with much thanks, we get a gritty and often brutal movie that's not afraid to call it as it sees it. The war, in case anyone was asleep during history class, was very much a case of the good against the bad and the makers here only reiterate that basic fact. With a couple of scenes memorable and worth the patience that is required to roll along with the predominantly dialogue driven tale.

Backing up Kelly & Aumont are Peter Lorre, Cedric Hardwicke, Hume Cronyn & Wallace Ford. Which alone speaks volumes as to why this is a nifty little treasure yearning to be dug out by other film fans. But this also has a good print which is devoid of fractures and makes for an easy on the eye experience. A film like this now would most likely be laughed out of the studio executive offices, but this is 1943, a troubled time, and this is a fine movie that certainly has enough intelligence and spunk to stop it getting weighed down by flag waving histrionics. 7/10

Jean-Pierre Aumont, Gene Kelly, Peter Lorre, Hume Cronyn, and Cedric Hardwicke star in "The Cross of Lorraine," a 1943 propaganda film.

I mean a propaganda film in the best way. Propaganda films made by the U.S. during World War II were often intended to inspire and show the people back home that their sacrifices meant something.

The Cross of Lorraine, referencing Joan of Arc's standard, adopted by Charles de Gaulle during World War II to mean the Free France, tells the story of French soldiers who surrender to Nazis and are lied to, and taken to a prisoner of war camp. There they endure terrible conditions and for some, death.

Hume Cronyn portrays a sniveling collaborator whom the Germans use as an interpreter. Cedric Hardwicke is a priest, whom he portrays with great dignity and quiet courage. Gene Kelly plays a defiant soldier put into solitary confinement. Jean-Pierre Aumont decides to cooperate with the Nazis on the surface only; he has another agenda. Aumont was older than God when he was still working in the '90s, and to see him as a young, gorgeous man, robust with incredible hair, is really something! The bravery of the French people is exhibited at the end of the film, when they make a decision to take action before the Nazis arrive at their town.

A really stirring film.

If you thought World War II Hollywood war movies were all sweetness and Casablanca fans, just wait till you see this gut-wrenching little propaganda piece, which must have come out the week the censors were all in Palm Springs. Perhaps the most realistic Hollywood portrayal of life as a prisoner of the Nazis until "Schindler's List," it's also quite intelligent and extraordinarily well-played by an excellent cast. You don't know the meaning of shock until you've seen Gene Kelly spit a huge gob of real sputum onto Peter Lorre's face--and then wait till you see what comes next. It's not Captain Renault and the roulette table, dearie.

Various Frenchmen head off to fight the Germans but the war is soon over for France. The soldiers have differing opinions on what's next for the country. Instead of returning home, they find themselves POWs in Germany.

The cast is international with some big names like Gene Kelly, Peter Lorre, and Hume Cronyn. I do wonder if surrendering French soldiers would end up in a POW camp. Maybe if they continue to fight after the amnesty. Anyways, it's good propaganda and that's what the country needed during this time.

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'.