Focus: A Film Review (1950-1951)

267 FILM REVIEWS By Our Panel of Priests THE WOODEN HORSE Starring: Leo Genn, with David Tomlinson, Anthony Steel. Producer: Ian DaJrymple. Director: Jack Lee. Distributors: British Lion. Certificate-. b. Category: B. Running time: ioi minutes. The Wooden Horse was one answer to the prisoner’s perpetual problem : How can I escape ? But it was inspired by an incident thousands of years ago. The Greeks got into Troy by concealing soldiers in a wooden horse. Peter (Leo Genn) and John (Anthony Steel) decide to get out of Btalag Luft III by a similar method. The German guards are not suspicious when a vaultinghorse is constructed out of Red Cross boxes, because they • know that tlfe • English are mad; and wliat could be madder than that underfed airmen should wish to spend hours day after day vaulting it? They do not guess that the two men are concealed in the horse each time it is carried out and back, that a tunnel is being bored to freedom, that the entrance shaft is carefully covered over with boards and soil. This ingenious device enables the tunnel to be started fairly near the wire fence. The suspense is appalling. The field-glasses of the German guards are continually focused on the horse and there are a thousand chances of a slip leading to detection. The sand has to be disposed of : it is carried away in little Irags made out of trouser-legs. There is the awful moment when the sand is discovered . . . and another when Peter is buried by a sudden subsidence . . . and all the time the vaulters are getting weaker and almost have to give up . . . The whole thing is fantastic and would be quite incredible — except that it actually happened. The film, which is an adaptation bv Eric Williams from his own novel, is so convincing that it has something of the quality of a documentary. It gains enormously from the extreme simplicity and expert handling of the story. The acting is superb. Leo Genn and Anthony Steel as Peter and John, and David ’-a Tomlinson as Phil, who takes charge of the vaulting and is, allowed to escape with the others, can hardly be overpraised. I defy you to see this film through and not be almost maddened by the tension. TbA It is arguable 'that it might have been better to diayeended the story with the actual escape frepn the camp and not to have gone on to Liibeck, Denmark, and finally Sweden. But in that case we should have,.* missed the admirable performance of Lis Lowert as Andre, the French worker who arranges for the fugitives to meet Sigmund, their Danish rescuer. 1: may be felt too that the occasional touches of camp humour are rather banal-Tbut surely that is as true as . the rest. Forgive me fdr moralising, but the picture has, for • me anyhow, a very topical message. At the present moment the world situation seems grimly hopeless and we think of the horrors of atomic warfare and ask when rather than whether. Well, here is a true account of the victory of human ingenuity over an apparently baffling |1 problem. Here is the triumph of human courage in the face of apparently overwhelming odds. It cost a good deal : physical endurance and psychological strain over a long period. It needed the unselfish co-operation of all the prisoners. But it succeeded. If you like a thoroughly good film, The I ]'oodcn Horse is one that you simply must see. And I need hardly add, you must see it through from the beginning. But if you are an ex-P.O.W. and don’t want to be reminded of your experiences, you had better stay away. It is all far too realistic ! J. R. W. D.