The One That Got Away 1957
It's a credit to the might of the propaganda machine operating throughout and beyond the Second World War that many of us are still only vaguely aware that the Allies had their own POW camps. Perhaps the authorities missed a trick, because while our boys were burrowing to freedom like rabbits from the Nazi jails, Jerry was having no such luck. In fact only one German prisoner ever escaped from an Allied camp to return to the Fatherland. His name was Oberleutnant Franz Von Werra, and The One That Got Away is his story. It's a good one too. Forced down over Kent in 1940, Luftwaffe ace Von Werra (Kruger) is imprisoned in a camp in the Lake District. Cocksure, boyishly handsome, and cutting a dash in his flying leathers, he immediately starts planning his escape. After two failed attempts (essentially legging it while his captors aren't looking) he's shipped to Canada where he gets a final chance to break for freedom - bolting from a transportation train across the frozen St. Lawrence River to America (still neutral in 1941). The picture's title gives the game away somewhat as to whether he makes it to safety or not, but there's a final surprise in store at the close.
