Lieutenant Maréchal: The theater's too deep for me. I prefer bicycling.
Lieutenant Rosenthal: Frontiers are an invention of men. Nature doesn't give a hoot.
Capt. von Rauffenstein: May the earth lie lightly upon our valiant enemy.
Capt. de Boeldieu: Out there, children play soldier...

Capt. de Boeldieu: In here, soldiers play like children.
Capt. de Boeldieu: May I ask you a question?

Capt. von Rauffenstein: Of course.

Capt. de Boeldieu: Why did you make an exception of me by inviting me here?

Capt. von Rauffenstein: Because your name is Boeldieu, career officer in the French Army. And I am Rauffenstein, career officer in the Imperial German Army.

Capt. de Boeldieu: But my comrades are officers as well.

Capt. von Rauffenstein: A 'Maréchal' and 'Rosenthal,' officers?

Capt. de Boeldieu: They're fine soldiers.

Capt. von Rauffenstein: Charming legacy of the French Revolution.

Capt. de Boeldieu: Neither you nor I can stop the march of time.

Capt. von Rauffenstein: Boldieu, I don't know who will win this war, but whatever the outcome, it will mean the end of the Rauffensteins and the Boeldieus.

Capt. de Boeldieu: We're no longer needed.

Capt. von Rauffenstein: Isn't that a pity?

Capt. de Boeldieu: Perhaps.
Lieutenant Maréchal: So you're digging a hole like Monte Cristo. What a laugh.
Capt. de Boeldieu: Is that supposed to be witty?
L'ingénieur: I hate the way German bulletins exaggerate.

Lieutenant Maréchal: And our papers don't? Remember "the Russian steamroller"?
Un officier de la forteresse: More coffee sir?

Capt. von Rauffenstein: If you call this muck coffee I have to accept it. At least it warms my insides.
Capt. de Boeldieu: For me it's simple. A golf course is for golf. A tennis court is for tennis. A prison camp is for escaping.
Capt. von Rauffenstein: Drive fast to the sugar refinery. I shot down a French plane. If the crew are officers, invite them here for lunch.
Le sergent Arthur: Officer's will be treated with the consideration due to their rank. However, you are reminded that you are under German military law. You will therefore submit to German discipline. Every German soldier in the camp may give you orders. And you will obey without protest. You will salute German officers. At any attempt at escape, sentries have orders to fire officers outside the camp boundary. Incorrect dress is not permitted.

German Officer: Strictly forbidden!

Le sergent Arthur: It is forbidden to form groups or insult the German nation, to write or speak to civilians.

German Officer: Strictly forbidden!

Le sergent Arthur: It is forbidden to speak to sentries.

German Officer: Most strictly forbidden!
German Guard #1: What are the French eating?

German Guard #2: Cabbages, but they've their parcels.

German Guard #3: Russians?

German Guard #2: Cabbage roots, but no parcels.

German Guard #1: The English?

German Guard #2: Plum pudding.
Capt. de Boeldieu: Where are your manners?

Le sergent Arthur: Sorry, it's our duty, this is war.

Capt. de Boeldieu: Agreed, but even so, let's remember our manners.
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.
Cartier - l'acteur: Now for my mole act! A mole in a hole!
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.
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.
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.
Capt. de Boeldieu: Your decorations show vegetarianism didn't interfere with duty.

L'instituteur: It didn't stop my wife sleeping around either.
Cartier - l'acteur: [singing] Do you know Marguerite? She's not big and she's not small, With arousing eyes and a mouth like a child's, When I told this beauty that I loved her, She gave me flowers and called me joker...
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 Rosenthal: One thing upsets me, leaving Maréchal behind.

Capt. de Boeldieu: I dislike it too. In fact, it irks me. Ah! Sentiment has no place in war.
Capt. von Rauffenstein: My men are not young, but they enjoy playing soldiers.
Capt. von Rauffenstein: Maxim's. That reminds me, I used to know a girl there in 1913. Her name was - Fifi.

Capt. de Boeldieu: So did I.
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.
Capt. von Rauffenstein: Give me your word that there is nothing in here against regulations.

Capt. de Boeldieu: You have my word. But why mine rather than the others?

Capt. von Rauffenstein: The word of a Rosenthal? Or a Maréchal?

Capt. de Boeldieu: Their word is as good as ours.

Capt. von Rauffenstein: Perhaps.
Capt. von Rauffenstein: And how's your cousin, Edmond de Boeldieu, who was my Military Attaché in Berlin?

Capt. de Boeldieu: He is well and happy. He lost an arm and married a very rich wife.

Capt. von Rauffenstein: A fine career!
Lieutenant Rosenthal: The Cossacks are in a tizzy!
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.
Capt. von Rauffenstein: I beg you, man to man, come back.

Capt. de Boeldieu: It's damn nice of you, Rauffenstein. But, it's impossible!

Capt. von Rauffenstein: Halt! Halt! Halt!
German Soldier: Lieutenants Maréchal and Rosenthal have escaped.

Capt. von Rauffenstein: Maréchal and Rosenthal. Say that's why. - Switch on the searchlights! Send out patrols with dogs! Alert all military and civil authorities. Report to me every quarter of an hour.
Capt. von Rauffenstein: Forgive me.

Capt. de Boeldieu: I would have done the same. French or German, duty is duty.
Capt. de Boeldieu: You have to carry on.

Capt. von Rauffenstein: Carry on a futile existence.

Capt. de Boeldieu: To be killed in a war is a tragedy for a commoner. For you and me, it's a good way out.
Lieutenant Maréchal: We've got to end this damn war and make it the last!

Lieutenant Rosenthal: What an illusion!

La Grande Illusion Quotes

Extended Reading

La Grande Illusion short comments

Maxwell 2022-01-07 15:53:50

So this is the originator of the prison escape movie! ! And it's much more than that! ! If the so-called artistic tribute is to constantly "draw inspiration" from the innovation of antiques, then all latecomers should die of shame
Winnifred 2022-03-27 09:01:14

The great origin, countless classics of later generations glow in your shadow, but the richness of the theme and the perfect combination are still unparalleled. Of course, I think, this is a work that tries to express a certain kind of thinking, symbolism and metaphor, about times and history, Bodio and Malisa, decline and emergence. Or, everything is just an illusion, and life is a constant attempt to escape from prison, only to fall into another kind of captivity.