Me and the Colonel

Me and the Colonel is a 1958 American comedy film based on the play Jacobowsky und der Oberst by Franz Werfel. It was directed by Peter Glenville and stars Danny Kaye, Curd Jürgens, and Nicole Maurey.

Danny Kaye speaking to a man in a beret - scene from "Me and the Colonel

In Paris during the WW II invasion of France, Jewish refugee S. L. Jacobowsky seeks to leave the country before it falls. Meanwhile, Polish diplomat Dr. Szicki gives the antisemitic and autocratic Polish Colonel Prokoszny secret information that must be delivered to London by a certain date. The resourceful Jacobowsky, who has had to flee from the Nazis several times previously, manages to "buy" an automobile from the absent Baron Rothschild's chauffeur. Prokoszny peremptorily requisitions the car, but finds he must accept an unwelcome passenger when he discovers that Jacobowsky has had the foresight to secure gasoline. The ill-matched pair (coincidentally from the same village in Poland) and the colonel's orderly, Szabuniewicz, drive away.