Von Stroheim is featured in an offbeat role which plays off our expectations of him by promising (or threatening) to confound them. Michel Simon also stars in this mystery set in a boys' school ca. 1914. A gripping thriller with ghosts, mysterious disappearances, and the German everybody loves to hate, the film still allows for a sensitive and moving development of character. Made in 1938, Les Disparus de Saint-Agil was not without its pre-War import; it is, in fact, perhaps the best of the spirited films (along with Daquin's Nous les Gosses and Vigo's earlier Zero de Conduit) which referred to the natural anarchy of childhood to call forth a spirit of resistance - with a capital R.
Georges Sadoul writes, “(T)he successful and exciting Les Disparus de Saint-Agil (was) adapted from the detective novel by Pierre Véry.... The script was by Jacques Prévert, although his name is not given in the credits. He fired it with such a poetry and understanding that the film became alive and real....” Director Christian-Jaque, also represented in this series by L'Assassinat du Père Noel and La Chartreuse de Parme, is one of the “discoveries” of Rediscovering French Film.