'A Man Escaped' & 'The Hole'

Because you can't have enough French prison-escape movies. Although not connected in the least, both  have a lot of common threads outside of being tremendous films.

A Man Escaped was about a French Resistance fighter caught by the Nazis during World War II and imprisoned in Fort Montluc. The film was based on the memoirs of Andre Devigny, who basically lived everything in the film including the escape from Montluc.

Director Jacques Becker also was imprisoned by the Nazis due to his activism in film after serving as an assistant to Jean Renoir. 

After the war, his own film career started and in 1960, four years after A Man Escaped, he released The Hole, which was based on Jose Giovanni's book, which featured Jean Keraudy, who was cast to portray Roland in the film (he also introduces the film after being shown working on a car. 


The Hole is far superior, I think. Mostly due to the excellent performances from the small main cast of five guys, who basically had zero acting experiences. For the most part, The Hole was each of their first performances. 

Becker died just weeks after the conclusion of filming.