Saw this whole movie today for the first time. It is a 1962 PoW movie about Sgt. Maj. Charles Coward. Dirk Bogarde plays Coward and I found it a good movie. I also found a remarkable amount of similarities between many of the details of events with the later movie 'The Great Escape'. I believe some plagiarism has taken place. :rolleyes2: -- Al
The Password is Courage (1 Viewer)
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UKReb
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The Password is Courage (1962) starring Dirk Bogarde as Sgt Major Charles Coward tells the amazing story of this real life character and for the very first time in a British P.O.W. film the hero actually comes from the "other ranks". This indefatigable British NCO who was captured at Dunkirk continually escaped only to continually be re-captured. His first attempt sees him masquerading as a wounded German soldier where he is taken to a military hospital. Lying in a bed awaiting his chance to escape he is awarded an Iron Cross First Class. Revealed as a British soldier he is sent to Stalag VIII-B where at every turn he humiliates his German captors, yet at the same time encourages and helps his fellow prisoners to escape. After being thwarted several times, in 1945, he and his corporal pal finally escaped by dressing as migrant workers, stealing a fire engine and crossing over to the American lines.
The film has a light hearted tone that doesn't quite come off and Bogarde was hardly perfect casting as a cocky NCO. It would have benefitted from a more dramatic retelling of Coward's amazing wartime exploits but at least there's very little of the usual British stiff upper lip routine that dominated the Brit POW films in the 50/60s. Must admit Al I had never considered your plagiarism point but come to think of it........
Bob
Mitch
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The book was superb reading. The film not so brilliant but, still worth watching and glad I eventually got it on DVD. There was mixed responses to it from POW's of the time. Events depicted were suggested to have happened in other camps and not to Coward at all and some stated they were quite true.
Glad you got to see it. It still beats some of the modern stuff hands down and I see what you mean about the great escape but, that is more fanciful and entertainment than depicting what actually happened.
Mitch
Glad you got to see it. It still beats some of the modern stuff hands down and I see what you mean about the great escape but, that is more fanciful and entertainment than depicting what actually happened.
Mitch
UKReb
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Al
I should post this on a book thread but as you raised an interesting issue on The Great Escape I'll keep it rolling here. Have you read Human Game by Simon Read? It's a recent publication that tells the gripping story of hunting down the Great Escape murderers. If you haven't I thoroughly recommend that you do so soonest.
Apparently the decision to execute all of the RAF escapees was taken by Hitler at a meeting at the Berghof-Obersalzberg the day after the mass escape. However, Goring persuaded him that such an atrocity could result in fierce Allied reprisals. It was actually Himmler who proposed that 50 of the 76 be shot. Following the executions Churchill demanded all the German/Gestapo personnel complicit in the executions be brought to justice. RAF police led by Frank McKenna began a manhunt for the murderers on a trail that had long gone cold. But by sheer dedicated police work amongst the rubble of immediate post war Germany- that took almost three years- McKenna and his team tracked down 60 of the Nazis involved in the cold blooded murder of those airman who tunnelled out of Stalag Luft III
Meticulously researched and a real page turner.
Bob
I should post this on a book thread but as you raised an interesting issue on The Great Escape I'll keep it rolling here. Have you read Human Game by Simon Read? It's a recent publication that tells the gripping story of hunting down the Great Escape murderers. If you haven't I thoroughly recommend that you do so soonest.
Apparently the decision to execute all of the RAF escapees was taken by Hitler at a meeting at the Berghof-Obersalzberg the day after the mass escape. However, Goring persuaded him that such an atrocity could result in fierce Allied reprisals. It was actually Himmler who proposed that 50 of the 76 be shot. Following the executions Churchill demanded all the German/Gestapo personnel complicit in the executions be brought to justice. RAF police led by Frank McKenna began a manhunt for the murderers on a trail that had long gone cold. But by sheer dedicated police work amongst the rubble of immediate post war Germany- that took almost three years- McKenna and his team tracked down 60 of the Nazis involved in the cold blooded murder of those airman who tunnelled out of Stalag Luft III
Meticulously researched and a real page turner.
Bob
Thanks for the suggestion, Bob. I have not read it. I might as well give Brickhill's book another read, as well. It's been literally decades since I read that as a teenager. I'll look them both up.:wink2: -- Al