Briercity

Just saw "The Password is COurage" about a Sgt. Charles Coward's experience as POW during WWII, based on a true story. The movie reminded me so much of an American movie "The Great Escape" from the early 70's(maybe). Is "The Great Escape" a re-make of the Courage movie?

dylan

Both films were made about the same time: The Password is Courage (1962),The Great Escape (1963).

The Password is Courage is based on Coward's actual experiences whilst The Great Escape, from the novel by Paul Brickhill, is a a fictionalised account of a real event.

Steve Crook

But we know that The Great Escape actually happened and people got killed.

The book that "The Password is Courage" is based on is the only source for this supposed autobiography.

The description of the final escape by the tunnel is just too similar to the tunnel in The Great Escape for it to be coincidence. Remember that "The Password is Courage" was based in an "other ranks" camp so it wasn't the same tunnel.

I have long thought (& said) that either the book or the film "borrowed" the story of The Great Escape.

Pual Brickhill's book isn't the only source for The Great Escape (even though it's the only one cited for the film). Other sources (books by others involved and a great one by the man who tracked down the murderers) also describe the tunnels & the escape in detail.

BTW it may have been an American movie but in reality all the Americans had been moved out before the escape took place. Steve McQueen's character was total fiction for the film.

Steve Crook

PaPAS

Hackett

As a young boy I remember seeing Charlie Coward on "This Is Your Life". I showed such interest that my dad brought me his biography. The book is bleaker than the film which is a bit "boys own adventurish". The two train wreaks and burning down of the timber yard are done to good cinematic affect but a bit too much "laughing in the face of dangerish". He also had to work with Jewish prisoners which is not portrayed in the film and where the book is bleaker. The ways he helped Jewish prisoners to escape or smuggle in explosives to blow up the death showers are heart-rending. Not filmable in the sixty's but worthy a revisit now if not at the cinema on t.v. as a mini series. A very brave and humane man who warrants more recognition in history than Mr.Stones film.

Steve Crook

That'd explain it, if they took a few events from the book but many others from other POW escapes and put them all together as the one film. It does seem to much - even for Dirk Bogarde :)

Thanks Hackett

Steve Crook

PaPAS

Polynikes

There seems to have been very few non-officer POW escapes - almost all were performed by officers.

Here in the USA we have the cable channel "The History Channel" which runs a regular programme called "History Versus Hollywood".

They had a show on the Great Escape recently and the producers admitted that the only reason there was so many Americans in the movie was to make it sell in the USA. That said they went out of their way (Steve McQueen's cameo aside) to re-create what actually happened. The James Garner-Donald Pleasance aerial escape is pure fiction too.

They later found out that the POWs who were murdered by the SS were killed in much the same way as shown in the film.

The best POW films are "The Wooden Horse" & "The Colditz Story". You could also make an honourable mention about William Holden's "Stalag 17" and Michael Redgrave's vulnerable portrait in "A Captive Heart".

Lastly, you should also see the British POW film set in Scotland about escaping German POWs called The McKenzie Break.

Hackett

The Makenzie Break is a great film that is also based on fact, a little bit of fact, but true. In a pow camp in England, Norfolk I think, a German prisoner was found hanged in the prison hospital and three fellow prisoners were suspected but I don't think they were convicted. I remember seeing a t.v.documentary about it. Back to the film which was not made in Scotland but Irland and Turkey. If you have a chance to see it watch out for all the black curly haired prisoners, Very German. Brian Keith in that battle dress, definitely not off the peg. Look out for old Noel Pursel uncredited as the ferryman and Ian Hendry as Major Perry great as always. Is it just me or does Ian Hendry steal every scene he's in.

Polynikes

Does anyone remember the excellent 70's BBC TV series "Secret Army"? In the last episode, the German Luftwaffe major is shot dead by his fellow prisoners (engineered by for SS chief in Brussels, Kessler, to hide his identity).

The Canadian officer in charge of the camp allows it and I thought it rather unreastic at the time but apparantly this too was based on fact.

Postmaster

I thought The McKenzie Break was a dramitisation of the events at Camp 21 in Scotland?
Execution at Camp 21

Hackett

Nobodys perfect Webmaster, even Supermans got Kryptonite.

ANNIE

How can anyone list great POW films and miss out Escape to Victory? What an acheivement to make a film about such an issue and turn it into a vehicle for Michael Caine and Ipswitch Town's football skills. Sylvester Stallone is crap though.

Hackett

I'm sorry Annie but I must take issue with your remark that Sylvester Stallone is crap in "ESCAPE TO VICTORY". Sylvester Stallone is crap in everything. How can you take any dialogue serious from a man talking in his own earhole?.

Bob M.

I can watch The Makenzie Break any time. Ian Hendry and Brian Keith are perfect to face off each other. Also the 'flashbacks ' work very well. O ne of my favourite Britfilms.

"How about dat, a? How about dat?

deckard

For anyone interested "The Password is Courage" is being shown on TCM(satellite TV) on May 2nd at 19.00. :)

P.S. it was on today but I didn't read this new posting till it was too late!!

"and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock"

Hackett

Why do they insist on showing this film without the concentration camp drawings?. They are not lurid or sordid but an intricate part of Cowards storey.