November 14, 2022

Lewis Gilbert has put together quite a good cast for this light-hearted wartime tale of POWs who find quite an innovative way of escaping and goon-baiting at the same time. Jack Warner ("Maddox") heads up the Allied side while Frederick Valk the Nazi one - and battle commences. The allies have a secret weapon - well, two actually. One is "Ainsworth" (Anthony Steel) who invents the other - "Albert" - a head made of papier-mâché that fits onto a co… read the rest.

Lewis Gilbert has put together quite a good cast for this light-hearted wartime tale of POWs who find quite an innovative way of escaping and goon-baiting at the same time. Jack Warner ("Maddox") heads up the Allied side while Frederick Valk the Nazi one - and battle commences. The allies have a secret weapon - well, two actually. One is "Ainsworth" (Anthony Steel) who invents the other - "Albert" - a head made of papier-mâché that fits onto a collapsible torso built to fool the guards during their routine inspections. After a few mishaps, a bit of bribery, betrayal and some impatience, it finally falls to "Ainsworth" to try and escape... This has a strong cast - including Anton Diffring and Robert Beatty, and is written with serious intent but enough dark humour to flow well for 90 minutes, and I really quite enjoyed it.

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