Papillon (film)

Papillon is a 1973 prison film directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, based on the bestselling autobiography by the French convict Henri Charrire.

1930s France. Henri Charrire Steve McQueen, a safecracker nicknamed Papillon because of the butterfly tattoo on his chest, is wrongly convicted of murdering a pimp. He is sentenced to life imprisonment within the penal system in French Guiana. En route, he meets a fellow convict, Louis Dega Dustin Hoffman, a forger and embezzler who is convinced that his wife will secure his release. Dega hires Papillon as his bodyguard, but the two eventually develop a friendship.After defending Dega against a sadistic guard, Papillon is sentenced to solitary confinement. In gratitude, Dega smuggles extra food to Papillon. When the food smuggling is discovered, prison guards cut Papillons food rations in half, believing that hunger will force him to reveal the name of his benefactor. Though emaciated and halfinsane, and reduced to eating insects to survive, Papillon refuses to snitch on Dega. After two years he is released from solitary confinement, having spent six months in total darkness and on half rations. A grateful Dega, who would not have had any ill feeling toward Papillon if he had told the warden that it was he who arranged the extra food, wants to pay back Papillon, which Papillon states is not necessary. However, Papillon plans another escape with Degas help. Another inmate, Clusiot Woodrow Parfrey, who Papillon and Dega long ago befriended, begs to go along, to which Papillon ultimately agrees. Although Papillon wants Dega to go along, Dega declines, still believing that his wife will eventually get him released, which Papillon does not think will ever happen as the prison system now owns him. ........

Source: Wikipedia