
The story serves as a companion piece to Renoir'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.
Caporal

Papa

Ballochet

Émile, aka 'Penche-à-gauche', waiter

'Caruso', amateur athlete, insurance agent

Guillaume aka 'Le Fermier'

'L'électricien'

The stuttering prisoner

Drunk traveler on the train

Erika Schmidt

Escapee disguised as an old woman

Hippolyte Dupieu

Cross-eyed man

Station employee

Peasant

Otto, Commander of the Stalag