Grand Illusion

[Jeremy Osner]

Saw a great movie last night, Renoir's *Grand Illusion* (1937!), which came with
a cool story: Hitler confiscated the negative and all existing prints, leaving
Renoir after the war to cobble together a master print from the prints which the
allies were able to retrieve after capturing Berlin; this master print was used
ever since. Unbeknownst to M. Renoir, the Soviets had taken the negative, which
was in unmarked cans; they were returned to France in 1960 but no one bothered
to check what was in them until 1990. So the new print which I was watching is
the original, not screened since WWII. I watched it on the TV; hopefully the
Film Forum or someone will put it on the big screen soon.

Anyways, I was wondering: most of the dialog in the movie is in German or
French; but at occasional key moments the characters start speaking in English.
The English they use at these times tends to be very stilted, and it sounded to
me like they were probably quoting popular American movies of the time, though I
did not recognize any of the lines. E.g. when the two lead characters first
meet, they talk about a mutual acquaintance, and von Stroheim says (something
like), "He was a marvelous rider, back in the day." Sounds like it's lifted from
a Western, no? Can anyone confirm or shoot down my hypothesis, or give more
info?

Thanks,
Jeremy