GRAEME

I'm always struck by the similarity between some of the escape details in The Password Was Courage and The Great Escape. In some places Escape apears to be a remake of the earlier film.

I know that a lot of these escape details were generic - I'm not stupid - but it is the extreme similarity I am referring to.

I know, also, that both films are based on true stories - different true stories. But has anyone else noticed the similarities I am talking about - the dirt spreading, the breathing apparatus, the truntaking in the tunnel and especially the emerging from the tunnel?

Is GE influenced by Courage? And which do people prefer?

I myself would have liked to see the Courage film go on to his experiences with the death camps in eastern Europe - although it would have altered the (overly?) jokey feel of the film.

Steve Crook

It's something I've often commented on

The Great Escape is based on a true story and apart from the way they include the Americans too much (they were moved to another camp some time before the escape) it's quite accurate.

The Password is Courage is based on the biography of Sgt Major Charles Coward and claims to be a true story - but it can't be.

The big escape at the end of PiC has so many similarities to GE that it can't just be coincidence. And there weren't any other escapes like the GE.

The Great Escape took place in a camp for RAF officers. There were a few "other ranks" there to act as orderlies but none of them were involved in the escape. As a Sgt Major, Coward could have been sent to an officers camp but apparently elected to stay with his men. And if he had gone to an officers' camp it would have been one for army officers, not RAF officers.

But there was nobody called Coward involved in the real event portrayed in The Great Escape.

So did the film "borrow" the story of the GE to make it more interesting and exciting? Or did the biographer write it as if he was there? If the latter, how much of the rest of his biography is to be believed? How much of the rest of the film is to be believed?

It's questions like those that spoil The Password is Courage for me.

Steve

samkydd

Aircrew were made up of senior NCOs as well as officers, and a Sgt Major is a SNCO rank (senior non-commissioned officer). However, in the camps they would almost certainly have been segregated into officers only huts, then SNCOs, then other ranks i.e. anyone below the rank of Sergeant (army or air force) or Petty Officer (navy).

It's possible that all aircrew were housed together, commissioned or non-commissioned, but I've a feeling that the Luftwaffe had a similar hierarchical structure as the RAF, with extra rights and priveleges granted to officers only therefore SNCOs would have been excluded.

This "us and them" culture was still very much present when I was in the RAF, but I don't think anyone minded this rather old fashioned olde worlde class structure, it seemed to work fine.

"...the chairman of Littlewoods stores made a Keynote speech!"

batman

I have the book 'The Password Is Courage' and the author, John Castle, is apparently a pseudonym for two ex-POWs, Ronald Payne and John Garrod. Can anyone shed any light on this? Are Payne and Garrod real people or a joint pseudonym for Coward?

Bats.

Jingle bells Batman smells ... I heard that at school Daddy.

BAT QUIZ 16 HAS JUST BEEN POSTED IN THE COMPETITION THREAD - 06/01/09

Steve Crook

But the even bigger segregation was between RAF prisoners and Army prisoners. That's why the ones in most films are called StalgLUFT (airman's prison)

Steve

GRAEME

Thanks Steve! A full and helpful reply. It's great to find someone who has noticed/cared about this - everyone I've ever spoken to about it before has shrugged their shoulders or, typically, never seen or heard of Password.

I wouldn't say the film is ruined for me - but it is a shame it didn't stick closer to the real and amzing Courage story.

Steve Crook

We'll have to try to dig a bit deeper.
Was there ever even a real Sgt Maj Coward? Or is the whole thing made up? Or a combination of the stories of a lot of different people?

Is the escape in the book? Does it mention things like the tunnel being difficult to open and falling short of the woods? Or did they just make that up (based closely on The Great Escape) for the film?

There's a Wikipedia page about Coward. But the only source cited is the book 'The Password Is Courage'

There are some interesting comments on the Wikipedia Talk page where someone else casts some doubt on the story as given in the book and the film.

Steve

Steve Crook

If it is a real and amazing story
It's certainly amazing, but is it real?

Steve

Sid

Here's a short article on Charlie Coward MQ MAGAZINE Issue 17 - Holocaust: The Count of Auschwitz

And another with a slightly different view of him (halfway down the page) Autumn 2006

Welease....Bwian!

Steve Crook

I think that he expanded on the truth slightly in his book - and then the film expanded it a whole lot more. They both "borrowed" stories that actually happened to other people (like The Great Escape)

Steve