It begins in a leisurely way, with British POWs in a camp, chatting and grumbling and being a little impudent with the German guards. On the whole it fits into the often splendid genre of post-war British films.
The POWs are more bored than abused. The sleeping quarters each house about four men. They sleep on comfortable bunks and wear pajamas. There's even a piano somewhere playing Mozart. In the hospital there are Beethoven records. But, driven by a desire to spend money, find a girl, and get a good meal, they begin to build a tunnel out of the camp.
The hut nearest the wire is too far away to use as a base, so the men construct a wooden horse to use on the fields outside; that is, a vaulting platform with a padded top, the sort of thing many of us had to cope with in high school gym class. Each day, when the men are not busy peeling potatoes, one of them will be hidden inside the hollow box-like structure and work on the tunnel, disguising the entrance with dirt-covered sandbags. During the practice runs, most of the POWs leap the horse easily but one continues to lose his nerve at the last minute and smash belly first into the structure. He's demoted to cheerleader.
The German guards are not the raving maniacs of the war years. Most are reasonable and, as in real life, a bit old for combat and worn out. This doesn't stop one of the Unteroffiziers from examining the vaulting horse in private and, after looking around to make sure no one is watching, he leaps across the top lengthwise, outdoing all the Brits, and grins with silent pride.
The work proceeds and there are moments of tension, as there must be in any movie about men crawling fifty feet through a tiny tunnel of dirt. No power on earth could get me to do it.
As it turns out, two men, Leo Genn and Anthony Steele, escape to the forest, thence to Lübeck, an ancient and distinctive northern city that gave us Günther Grass and Thomas Mann. Some location shooting was obviously done around the city's landmarks. The pace picks up. Narrow escapes up alleys and over fences. Evil forces are closing in on them but they finally make their way to a Danish freighter where they are welcomed aboard. Danish freighters can be fun. I accompanied two linguists aboard a freighter this size in Nova Scotia. The object was to see how the pronunciation of a sentence in French would be altered by a Danish accent. "Selon notre dernier rapport la besoin est très bon." I don't know about the business but the festivities were gay and we staggered off loaded on Akvavit. (I just threw that in for lagniappe.) Copenhagen, of course, was occupied by the Germans in World War II and conditions remained dicey for the pair. The first violent scene takes place in the boatyard of a nearby fishing village when Genn kills a German guard, an act that leaves him chagrined.
The escape are close but Genn and Steele finally make it to Sweden, which, unlike neighboring Norway, remained neutral for reasons having to do with the transport of raw materials. Safe at last in the arms of the British embassy.
The opening scenes, the tunnels and so forth, have now become familiar fare in these escape movies, but the twists and turns of their escape through Germany and Denmark are engaging enough. I admire the photography too, and the treatment of the enemy, who are rendered as human instead of as cartoon figures.
The POWs are more bored than abused. The sleeping quarters each house about four men. They sleep on comfortable bunks and wear pajamas. There's even a piano somewhere playing Mozart. In the hospital there are Beethoven records. But, driven by a desire to spend money, find a girl, and get a good meal, they begin to build a tunnel out of the camp.
The hut nearest the wire is too far away to use as a base, so the men construct a wooden horse to use on the fields outside; that is, a vaulting platform with a padded top, the sort of thing many of us had to cope with in high school gym class. Each day, when the men are not busy peeling potatoes, one of them will be hidden inside the hollow box-like structure and work on the tunnel, disguising the entrance with dirt-covered sandbags. During the practice runs, most of the POWs leap the horse easily but one continues to lose his nerve at the last minute and smash belly first into the structure. He's demoted to cheerleader.
The German guards are not the raving maniacs of the war years. Most are reasonable and, as in real life, a bit old for combat and worn out. This doesn't stop one of the Unteroffiziers from examining the vaulting horse in private and, after looking around to make sure no one is watching, he leaps across the top lengthwise, outdoing all the Brits, and grins with silent pride.
The work proceeds and there are moments of tension, as there must be in any movie about men crawling fifty feet through a tiny tunnel of dirt. No power on earth could get me to do it.
As it turns out, two men, Leo Genn and Anthony Steele, escape to the forest, thence to Lübeck, an ancient and distinctive northern city that gave us Günther Grass and Thomas Mann. Some location shooting was obviously done around the city's landmarks. The pace picks up. Narrow escapes up alleys and over fences. Evil forces are closing in on them but they finally make their way to a Danish freighter where they are welcomed aboard. Danish freighters can be fun. I accompanied two linguists aboard a freighter this size in Nova Scotia. The object was to see how the pronunciation of a sentence in French would be altered by a Danish accent. "Selon notre dernier rapport la besoin est très bon." I don't know about the business but the festivities were gay and we staggered off loaded on Akvavit. (I just threw that in for lagniappe.) Copenhagen, of course, was occupied by the Germans in World War II and conditions remained dicey for the pair. The first violent scene takes place in the boatyard of a nearby fishing village when Genn kills a German guard, an act that leaves him chagrined.
The escape are close but Genn and Steele finally make it to Sweden, which, unlike neighboring Norway, remained neutral for reasons having to do with the transport of raw materials. Safe at last in the arms of the British embassy.
The opening scenes, the tunnels and so forth, have now become familiar fare in these escape movies, but the twists and turns of their escape through Germany and Denmark are engaging enough. I admire the photography too, and the treatment of the enemy, who are rendered as human instead of as cartoon figures.