The Grand Illusion (1937)

Jean Gabin: Le lieutenant Maréchal

Photos 

Quotes 

• Lieutenant Maréchal : So you're digging a hole like Monte Cristo. What a laugh.

• Lieutenant Maréchal : The theater's too deep for me. I prefer bicycling.

• Lieutenant Maréchal : It's not a very common disease in high society. Eh, Boeldieu?

  Capt. de Boeldieu : Yes, but it's a vanishing privilege. Like so much else, it's become popularized. Cancer and gout are not working-class diseases, but they will be, believe me.

  Lieutenant Rosenthal : How about intellectuals?

  Le lieutenant Demolder : In our case, tuberculosis.

  Capt. de Boeldieu : Here's Mr. Pindar.

  Lieutenant Maréchal : And the middle-class?

  Lieutenant Rosenthal : Liver ulcers, they eat too much. We'd each die of our own class aliment, if war didn't make all germs equal.

• L'ingénieur : I hate the way German bulletins exaggerate.

  Lieutenant Maréchal : And our papers don't? Remember "the Russian steamroller"?

• Lieutenant Maréchal : We've got to end this damn war and make it the last!

  Lieutenant Rosenthal : What an illusion!

• Lieutenant Maréchal : You're sure that's Switzerland?

  Lieutenant Rosenthal : Positive.

  Lieutenant Maréchal : It all looks the same.

  Lieutenant Rosenthal : You can't see borders - they're man-made. Nature couldn't care less.

  Lieutenant Maréchal : We've got to end this damn war and make it the last.

• Lieutenant Rosenthal : Gentlemen, dinner is served. What shall we begin with? Cold chicken, pâté de foie, mackerel in wine?

  Capt. de Boeldieu : Quite a menu!

  Lieutenant Maréchal : Don't they feed us?

  L'ingénieur : They do in theory. In fact it's uneatable. Fortunately there are our parcels, especially Rosenthal's.

  Lieutenant Rosenthal : Please. Drop of cognac as an aperitif?

  Capt. de Boeldieu : Why not?

  Cartier - l'acteur : I have never eaten so well in my life! Some fish?

  Lieutenant Maréchal : Yes, please.

  Cartier - l'acteur : I'm starting to take Rosenthal's kindness for granted. It shows man is a creature of habit.

  L'instituteur : No need to tell you he's a teacher. Teach, preach, screech, leech.

• L'ingénieur : We're digging a tunnel.

  Lieutenant Maréchal : What for?

  L'ingénieur : To escape.

  Lieutenant Maréchal : What do you dig with?

  L'ingénieur : With a coal shovel, old cans. We should come up in a garden behind those buildings. It's open country.

  Lieutenant Maréchal : Slow work.

  L'ingénieur : We've been at it for two months. We only need a few more weeks.

  Lieutenant Maréchal : The war'll be over first!

  L'ingénieur : That's an illusion.

• Lieutenant Maréchal : What've you planted here?

  L'ingénieur : Dandelions.

  Lieutenant Maréchal : I dream of dandelion salad.

  Lieutenant Maréchal : The war'll be over before our dandelions sprout.

  L'ingénieur : Don't be so sure.

  Capt. de Boeldieu : This curious exercise will give us laborer's hands.

• L'instituteur : [looking though a trunk of ladies clothes]  Looks like a child's dress.

  Lieutenant Maréchal : Women skirts are short now. Just below the knee.

  Cartier - l'acteur : So I heard, I wish I could see them!

  Lieutenant Maréchal : Put it on!

  Lieutenant Rosenthal : Not him, he's badly shaven. You, angel-face.

  Angel-face : If it amuses you.

• Cartier - l'acteur : He was born in Jerusalem!

  Lieutenant Rosenthal : Wrong, Vienna! My mother was Danish, my father Polish, naturalized French.

  Lieutenant Maréchal : Good old French aristocracy.

  Lieutenant Rosenthal : And yet for all your old French stock, not one of you owned an acre of France. In 35 years, the Rosenthal's have acquired three historic castles and all that goes with them: hunting, farmland and horses. And 3 galleries of genuine ancestors. Believe me, it's worth escaping to fight for that.

  Capt. de Boeldieu : I had never considered patriotism from that rather special point of view.

• Lieutenant Maréchal : We've retaken Douaumont! They announce it themselves!

  POW in drag : "La Marseillaise" please.

  [singing] 

  POW in drag : Allons enfants de la Patrie...

  French POWs : [singing]  Le jour de gloire est arrivé! Contre nous de la tyrannie, L'étendard sanglant est levé, Le jour de gloire est arrivé! Contre nous de la tyrannie, L'étendard sanglant est levé...

• Lieutenant Maréchal : We've been together eighteen months and you still stand on ceremony.

  Capt. de Boeldieu : I am the same with my mother and my wife.

• Capt. de Boeldieu : Cigarette?

  Lieutenant Maréchal : No thanks. English tobacco gives me a sore throat.

• Lieutenant Maréchal : They wear their hair short too.

  L'instituteur : Short hair!

  Cartier - l'acteur : Must seem like sleeping with a boy!

  L'instituteur : When the cat's away the mice will play!

  French POW : I'm sure my wife hasn't cut her hair.