Plot
At the start of World War II, Frenchmen from all walks of life enlist. Defeated by the invading Germans in 1940, Marshal Philippe Pétain signs a peace agreement and the troops surrender. However, instead of being repatriated to their homes, a group of soldiers find themselves in a brutal prison camp. Most of the men resist as best they can, and some, like Paul (Jean-Pierre Aumont), are willing to spend time in solitary confinement and be subjected to beatings, while others, such as Duval (Hume Cronyn), collaborate with their jailers to get an easier life. The men find solace from Father Sebastian (Sir Cedric Hardwicke), a priest who was also in the army and who counsels them wisely. Eventually Paul helps his fellow prisoners to escape. When they liberate a village, they realise that continued fighting is the only option, so they join the French Resistance.
Read more about this topic: The Cross Of Lorraine
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is perhaps why in our morally bewildered time novelists have often been timid about plot.”
—Jane Rule (b. 1931)
“The plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular age, people, or country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account, as nobody’s previous information could afford the remotest glimmering of what would ever come of it.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“Those blessed structures, plot and rhyme—
why are they no help to me now
I want to make
something imagined, not recalled?”
—Robert Lowell (1917–1977)