"Passage to Marseille" is one of the few films to use a flashback within a flashback, within a flashback, following the narrative structure of the novel on which it is based. The film opens at an airbase in England during World War II. Free French Captain Freycinet tells a journalist the story of the French pilots stationed there. The second flashback is at the French prison colony at Cayenne in French Guiana while the third flashback sets the scene where the lead character, Matrac, a newspaper publisher, is framed for a murder to silence him.