Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner and starring Steve McQueen, Dustin Hoffman, Victor Jory, this drama is a biography of the pugnacious Charriere, a Frenchman wrongly imprisoned for life for a crime he did not commit and sent to various hell-hole prisons in French Guiana. He saves the life of fellow convict Louis Dega and together, they determine to escape, despite the odds.