5/5 Fabulous!!
  by Operafilly (Fallbrook, Ca United States)
I first saw this on tape about 15 years ago.

Strohiem and Fresnay are pure chemistry. I had only seen Fresnay in Paris Waltz as an eccentric Jacques Offenbach. What a difference to see him as an elegant aristocratic officier. Amd a perfect contrast to rugged Von Stroheim. I was already a Von Stroheim fan.

This is a must see. Everything fits so well, even with subtitles. Worth many more stars

5/5 Short and Sweet.
  by Speak! Memory (Cambridge)
No exegesis here; it remains, for me, the most humane and beautiful film of all.

5/5 When two brave men meet face to face...though they come to the ends of the earth.'
  by Ron Braithwaite (El Indio, Texas United States)
'Grand Illusions' is not as gritty or pessimistic as are Remarque's 'All Quiet on the Western Front' or Cobb's 'Paths of Glory' but must be rated as one of the all-time great anti-war films. The interaction between the French captive, de Boieldeu, and his German captor, Von Rauttenstein, is especially poignant. They have known each other before the war in Paris where they evidently shared the same 'girlfriend'. More importantly...at least to the German...is that he and the Frenchman are of the same aristocratic class and both are career military officers in the finest sense of the word.

Boieldeu is the captive but doesn't disagree with his German Commandant. The Commandant tells him...so correctly as it turns out...that the War will be the end of people of their class and temprament. As it turns out, the German is dead right and his forced to shoot his old friend as he provides a diversion...in the noblest tradition...for the escape of his two lower class officer friends.

Erich von Stroheim is more than perfect as von Rauttenstein. He walks stiffly erect not simply because of his Prussian underpinnings but because 'my back was broken in two places and I have a silver plate in my skull and knee.' von Rauttenstein has contempt for his role as a jailer but, again in tune with his aristrocratic birth, 'I do my duty.'

Stroheim steals the film as the intense but sympathetic officer who 'does his duty' and shoots his friend. He grieves as Boieldeau lies dying and tells him that 'at least you die was we should die but...me...I missed my chance.' Boieldeau lies dead and the camera catches the German's hand...solemnly lovingly...closing Boeldeau's open eyes. We see his opposite hand clenched in a fist. Powerful.

Apparently Hitler banned this film in Germany...and little wonder. Not only was it anti-war but, just as importantly, it anticipated the Nazi Party's leveling and destruction of the German aristocracy in favor of the common working man...the Nazi proletariat.

Ron Braithwaite author of novels--'Skull Rack' and 'Hummingbird God'--on the Spanish Conquest of Mexico

5/5 4 stars out of 4
  by One-Line Film Reviews (Easton, MD)
The Bottom Line:

A thought-provoking movie that is also a consistently interesting depiction of prison camps and escape, Grand Illusion works on nearly every level; rightfully considered a classic despite the intervening 70 years, Renoir's masterpiece is a film to be treasured.

4/5 Not Goebbels favourite film
  by Sirin (London, UK)
Many European artists of the 20th century had the rare privilege of knowing that their creations were important to society as they were banned by governments who disliked them (not so in today's democratic age where you can make just about any political or cultural point you like (except offend Muslims) and no one will take a blind bit of notice).

Goebbels siezed La Grande Illusion when the Nazis invaded France as he didn't take to the movie's message that war was a tragic heedless imposition that drove people against each other who otherwise found great solidarity amongst fraternities and languages. Honestly, watch this movie, with its tender, wistful and comic scenes of friendship and love between French and Germans and you will gape again at the blunt, inhumanity of the Nazis who must have forced themselves to shut them off from every sympathetic human emotion in order to perpetuate the attrocities they did.

Oh, and by the way, don't get this edition but rather then DVD with the cover of the dove impaled on barbed wire through the chest of a black shod soldier. That version features a charming interview with an eloquent French film critic who sheds interesting light on the film in its historical context. (I am a history teacher so I like to pick up on these things).