Le cheval de bois

While thinking of "The Great Escape" I allowed my mind to wander back to this little gem of a movie from my childhood. I had read and re-read the autobiographical novel from 1949 which inspired it, and when it came to the only cinema (we never used that word then , actually) in town that showed "foreign" films, I was first in line to buy my ticket.

As someone brought up on wartime newsreels and propaganda films during WWII, I had an avid interest in exploring the realities of that conflict as reflected in the memoirs and stories of men who were there in person. That extended later to a keen willingness over the years to buy any book on the subject, and eventually to read the equally compelling novels of Hans Helmut Kirst and Erich Maria Remarque, which provided an even deeper sensibility. The movie versions, however, were unlike this one in that they rarely delivered the goods.

The medium of black-and-white film has never been served so well as it was in those years. I have never seen any technicolor version of war that seems as authentic as do the deep chiaroscuros of films like "The Wooden Horse." If it is true that we are destined always to be captive to the images of our childhood, then I confess it freely.

And there will never be another the likes of Leo Genn as the emblematic British war hero on film. Not even Sir Alec.

The British stiff upper lip way of filming POW escape movies is evident here, since this is a low-key telling of how three men escaped from a German prison camp right in front of their captors by using the age-old device of a Trojan Horse in the guise of gym equipment.

LEO GENN, ANTHONY STEEL and David TOMLINSON are the men who conspire to use a vaulting mechanism as a means of escape. The first part of the film deals with the tension that mounts as the escape is prepared by tunneling to the escape point far from the men's barracks. The second half of the story follows their escape route as they hide from German authorities in order to escape to Denmark and then to safety in Sweden.

All of it is told in crisp, no frills fashion and in the very understated British style of filmmaking, vastly different from the way the subject matter would have been treated in an American film. Particularly impressive are the sequences where Genn and Steel must rely on their own wit and abilities to deceive the enemy after their escape from camp.

Tension mounts toward a satisfying ending. All told, an excellent British film that tells a true story without a lot of false bravado.

I saw a documentary about this true story and was very impressed, so I looked forward to the film and wasn't disappointed.

The Wooden Horse is about officers attempting to escape a prison camp. This is actually a pretty decent camp - beds, exercise yard, and cooking facilities. The men have one tunnel started in their barracks, but they realize it's going to take too long to dig until they get under the wire fence. So they come up with another plan. They make a wooden exercise horse which they bring outside, closer to the fence. Someone hides inside who then digs a tunnel while the men leap over the horse and do various exercises. At the end of the exercise day, the person inside uses boards to cover the hole and then puts dirt over it as a camouflage.

That's the first part of the film. The second part has to do with escaping to Sweden. It's all very suspenseful and engrossing and sports good performances from Leo Genn, Anthony Steel, and David Tomlinson.

Really a great story, all the more amazing because it's true. A good watch.

In the long line of distinguished & inspiring war movies made in England in the 40's & '50s (Went The Day Well, Dam Busters, Cockleshell Heroes, One of Our Aircrafts is Missing, We Dive At Dawn) about British military personnel resisting German aggression in the second War, comes this little gem. This movie tells the story of Stalag Luft III where British airmen Leo Genn & David Tomlinson (both more famous for their roles in Quo Vadis & Mary Poppins respectively) are imprisoned. In a daring attempt the duo with one more accomplice break out of the heavily guarded camp by digging a tunnel from under their exercise title instrument. The second half of the movie concerns their attempts to reach Sweden, a neutral territory from where they can reach England.

Leo Genn performs convincingly as the pipe-smoking elder Flight Lt. who goads & coaxes the younger David Tomlinson on, first through the tunnel & then through enemy territory. Both had war time experiences & borrow heavily from that. Peter Finch has one of his first roles as a Australian soldier who helps in the escape plan. Two of the funniest parts of the movie are the 'venture capitalists' in the form of the escape committee headed by senior officers approving of the plan & later financing it, & the retort of one of the injured soldiers in the hospital to a German comment that Beethoven is a good German.

So ignore some of the incongruencies and enjoy this suspensor. It is no 'Stalag 17', but still a good entertainer all the way.

Excellent P.O.W. adventure, adapted by Eric Williams from his own book (a paperback copy of which forms part of my father's library) that was inspired by true events; it may well be the first film of its kind and, therefore, has a lot to answer for – not just similarly stiff-upper-lipped examples such as ALBERT, R.N. (1953; which I'll be watching presently), THE COLDITZ STORY (1955) and DANGER WITHIN (1959) but higher-profile releases from the other side of the Atlantic, namely STALAG 17 (1953) and THE GREAT ESCAPE (1963). This, then, sets the basis pretty solidly: British soldiers interned in a German camp devise an ingenious plan of escape, borrowing a page from Greek legend – burrowing from under a vaulting horse used during physical exercise and in full view of their captors! Actually, the film is neatly split into two halves: the first deals with the slow process of digging the tunnel, culminating in the escape itself, while the latter stages depict their fortunes outside the camp as they try to make it to neutral Sweden. Typically of these British films, the cast showcases several established (Leo Genn), current (Anthony Steel) and up-and-coming (Peter Finch, David Tomlinson and Bill Travers) stars, to say nothing of innumerable reliable character actors (Anthony Dawson, Bryan Forbes, Michael Goodliffe and Walter Gotell). The three leads/escapees are Genn, Steel and Tomlinson: while the first two stick together, the latter goes his own way – only to run into the others on reaching safety. As can be expected, the narrative involves plenty of suspense and excitement; as with most male-centered P.O.W. sagas, too, female interest is kept to the barest minimum. Director Lee didn't have a lengthy career – with this and the somewhat similar (albeit with a change of both setting and viewpoint) A TOWN LIKE ALICE (1956) his most noteworthy achievements – but he certainly milked every gripping situation in this case (even if, reportedly, delays in filming saw Lee quitting his post prematurely…leaving producer Ian Dalrymple with the task of tying up loose ends!). Anyway, worth special mention is the exquisite lighting (particularly during night-time sequences) throughout.