General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Le Trou

Le Trou (French for "The Hole") is a 1960 French-Italian prison-escape film directed by Jacques Becker, adapted from José Giovanni's autobiographical 1957 novel about a real 1947 escape attempt from La Santé Prison in Paris. It was Becker's thirteenth and final film; he died during post-production at age 53, and his son Jean completed the editing before the film's French release on 18 March 1960.¹^•²^•³

Key fact	Detail
Director / year	Jacques Becker, 1960; his last film, completed by his son Jean after Becker's death during post-production¹
Source	José Giovanni's novel Le Trou, published in 1957 in the Série noire, based on his own role in a 1947 escape attempt at La Santé⁴
Cast	Largely non-professional actors, including Jean Kéraudy, an actual participant in the 1947 escape, who plays Roland and introduces the film on screen²^•⁵
Sound	No music score; the soundtrack consists only of natural sound, including the digging itself¹
Key crew	Cinematography Ghislain Cloquet; editing Marguerite Renoir and Geneviève Vaury; produced by Serge Silberman for Play-Art, Filmsonor, and Titanus⁶
Award	Best Film, French Syndicate of Cinema Critics, 1961, tied with Breathless⁷
Critical standing	Jean-Pierre Melville called it "the greatest French film of all time"⁸

Spoilers

Plot

Four long-term inmates sharing a cell at La Santé Prison, Roland (Jean Kéraudy), Manu (Philippe Leroy), Géo (Michel Constantin), and Vosselin, known as Monseigneur (Raymond Meunier), are partway through a plan to dig their way out when a newcomer, Claude Gaspard (Marc Michel), is assigned to their cell. Facing serious charges and with little to lose, they take the risk of bringing him into the plot.⁹^•¹⁰

The escape proceeds by patient physical labor. Using a sawed bedpost as a tool, the men break through the concrete floor of the cell, conceal the hole and debris under stacked cardboard, and work their way toward the prison's cellars and the sewer system. The film follows the work in close detail: a periscope improvised from a toothbrush, twine, and a mirror lets them watch the corridor through the cell door's peephole, guards' nightly bed checks are fooled, and food parcels are methodically cut open and searched by the prison staff.⁹^•¹¹^•¹⁰

The plan fails at the last moment. The warden, having identified the soft-spoken Claude as a source of information, tells him that his wife has withdrawn her complaint and that he faces release, and Claude betrays his cellmates. When the escape attempt reaches its climax, guards are waiting; the four are taken, and Claude is left alone in a cell.¹²^•¹¹

Production and authenticity

Becker bought the rights to Giovanni's novel and founded a small production company, les Films de juillet, with producer Serge Silberman to make the project on his own terms.¹³ The film was conceived, in the words of one French film-history association, as a "Beckerian response" to Robert Bresson's A Man Escaped (1956), the other landmark French prison-escape film of the period; where Bresson follows a solitary prisoner's ingenuity, Becker shows what five men can accomplish with their hands, foregrounding brute force and collective effort.¹³^•⁸

Authenticity was a deliberate method. In homage to Italian neorealist films such as Bicycle Thieves, Becker cast non-professionals as his convicts; several, including Michel Constantin and Philippe Leroy, went on to long acting careers. Several men involved in the real 1947 escape were central to the production: Giovanni wrote the novel and co-wrote the screenplay with Becker and Jean Aurel, and Roland Barbat, the plot's real leader, nicknamed "the king of escapes" for his three previous prison breaks, appears under the pseudonym Jean Kéraudy, vouching for the story in a prologue and playing himself. According to Becker's own statement in the release press book, most of the film was shot in sections of La Santé where the original attempt had taken place, with studio sets built under the supervision of the experts.²

Becker was already gravely ill during the shoot. He died on 21 February 1960, at fifty-three, during post-production, and his son Jean finished the film to his specifications before the 18 March release.⁵^•³

Reception and legacy

The film's initial reception was poor. It arrived in French cinemas at the same time as Godard's Breathless and drew charges that it took the side of criminals; to boost its box office chances, producer Serge Silberman trimmed roughly 24 minutes from it, and for years afterward the film remained little seen beyond France. The French Syndicate of Cinema Critics nevertheless named it Best Film of 1961, tied with Breathless, and the complete version later circulated internationally through the Criterion Collection's release.⁵^•⁷

Its reputation has since risen steadily. Jean-Pierre Melville hailed it as "the greatest French film of all time," and critics have repeatedly singled out its procedural detail, its natural-sound design in place of a score, and its portrait of solidarity under duress, ending in a betrayal that ranks among the most shocking in French cinema.⁸^•¹⁴ A 4K restoration by Studiocanal, with the support of the CNC, was released in 2017.¹³ On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 95% Tomatometer from 19 critics and a 96% audience score.⁹

Reported running times differ across editions and archives: the Criterion Collection lists 131 minutes, the CNC's 1960 visa record gives 124 minutes, and the BFI lists 123 minutes.⁶^•³^•¹

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1960s › Released 1960 to 1965

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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