Le prisonnier fantôme

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.

Hammer in their war films concentrated on the more visceral aspects of warfare. Few ever mention that Hammer personnel like Jack Asher, Bernard Robinson and even Malcolm Arnold earlier worked alongside stalwarts of more traditional fare like Anthony Steel and Lewis Gilbert in this depiction of possibly the most bizarre method of escape from a prisoner of war camp ever devised.

It has the usual mixture of contrasting nationalities with William Sylvester as "the gentleman from Texas" bringing his usual reassuring presence to this film's equivalent of the 'Cooler King', while Anton Diffring puts the 'nasty' into 'Nazi'.

There were quite a few British POW films in the '50's, some better than others. For some reason, the real ingenuity of escape attempts were glossed over, what so occupied the POWs attentions and on which depended their happiness and their lives: how uniforms, documents, stamps, photographs, tools etc could be made by with apparently none of what was necessary to make them. The films were thus human stories which though lacked much of what had been so crucial to the men involved. Here though the heart of the film is Albert RN - the life-like full size dummy used to take the place of a prisoner - and the virtuoso performances of its summoning out of the air in seconds, and its disassembly and disappearance again in seconds. Also along with the dummy itself, the way it was deployed, the plans for avoiding discovery and the on the spot quick thinking needed if the unexpected happened (when perhaps a dozen POW had to wordlessly devise and implement a plan in the presence of the German guards). And Albert R.N. was not just brought out to deceive the guards on the day of the escape but every day for a week to delay discovery of the escaped prisoner.

The other parts of the film are not quite up to par. Jack Warner did not convince physically as a serving naval officer, Anton Differing did his nasty Nazi once again (though who did it better?) but the marvel of Albert RN the dummy raised the bar and shone a light on the ingenuity, daring and skill of those who devised, built and operated him.

Considering the number of times 'Albert R. N.' is rolled out on UK terrestrial channels, it receives very little attention on IMDB. The movie is based on a play that is based on an event that actually occurred in WWII, when official war artist John Worsley was a POW and created just such a dummy to fool German POW headcounts.

It worked for four days, apparently, while in the movie Albert serves for months.

This movie is best watched as an example of UK war propaganda (8 years) after the event. Any resemblance of characters or plot to reality is nonexistent. Anton Diffring is as usual a convincing SS officer, except his uniform appears to be home-made - and they forgot the death's head on his cap. Most of the rest of the cast appear to have discovered a secret cache of doughnuts, as if in 1953 people didn't appear to understand the link between POW rations and weight loss. They did, but the news hadn't reached Nettlewood Studios.

'Break To Freedom' ('Albert R. N' in the UK, a much better title) is worth watching as a window into old-fashioned war drama; it's well structured and not that boring. It's just unrealistic to the point of surrealism. Jack Warner doesn't so much phone it in, he texts it.

The dummy, though. Eerily like Dickie Attenborough, who appeared in many a film of this genre.

ALBERT, R.N. is a very good British WW2 prisoner of war movie which has a story so incredible it must be true. It features an naval officer and his men who are determined to escape from their camp in Germany at any cost, and devise one of the most audacious plans in history to facilitate their freedom. This suspense-packed narrative subsequently follows their adventures with many highs and lows along the way.

I've always loved a good prison film and this one offers something a little different; the prisoners are actually well taken care of and have plenty of camaraderie in their living quarters. Nonetheless the escape attempts are enthralling and often jaw-dropping in the way the simplicity of the thing works so well - you can't believe what you're seeing.

I also like the way that the writers take the time to develop the individual characters to more than just walking stereotypes. Anthony Steel is particularly good as the conflicted newcomer, but he's given fine support by Jack Warner as the friendly captain. Anton Diffring has one of his best early roles as a ruthless and mercenary German officer. In support, the viewer is treated to the likes of Eddie Byrne, Michael Balfour, William Sylvester, and Paul Carpenter, all of whom are very fine in their parts. ALBERT, R.N. is something of a forgotten classic of its type and a film that more than holds its own against the bigger budget Hollywood tales.