The Wooden Horse

Since I was introduced to the 1963 classic WWII movie The Great Escape as a kid, I've been a sucker for prisoner of war stories.  I've read books, seen movies, and watched documentaries about the lives of P.O.W.'s -- usually Allied prisoners -- as they fought the war from the inside of prison camps.  The courage shown by these men in continuing to attempt to perform their duty of escaping never ceases to impress me.  In camps specifically built to stop them from escaping, the prisoners concocted unique, innovative, even brilliant plans at getting outside the barbed wire and trying to make their way to freedom.

One of the first movies to show these efforts was 1950's The Wooden Horse, a British film documenting the story of British prisoners in a German prisoner of war camp in 1943. Movies like The Great Escape focused on a mass escape, a whole camp working together. Von Ryan's Express was a completely fictional story of a desperate mass escape that had no basis in reality. Other movies like Bridge on the River Kwai were about more than just prisoners of war, attempting to deliver a message about the war and what it does to its soldiers, bringing up questions of honor and duty. But in the early 1950s, a handful of British movies were almost documentary looks at prisoners of war, like The Colditz Story or here with The Wooden Horse.

A prisoner at Stalag Luft III in Germany, downed British airman Peter (Leo Genn) has seen countless escape attempts fail as the German guards foil most escapes before they can even get outside the barbed wire. His friend and fellow prisoner John (Anthony Steel) comes up with a plan just desperate and idiotic enough to work.  Building a movable gymnastic vaulting platform with a hollow bottom, the prisoners will sneak someone out underneath it into the compound. Then, while other prisoners use the platform as a means of exercise, one prisoner under cover of the platform will dig straight down and then out to the other side of the barbed wire. With some help from their bunkmates, including resourceful Phil (David Tomlinson), they go to work, the slow, dangerous work of moving hundreds and thousands of pounds of sand one bag full at a time. With the slow-going work proceeding at a snail's pace, will the German guards figure out their plan before the tunnel is complete?

There is a whole sub-culture of prisoner of war movies, a culture and knowledge I might take for granted as I write this review or even just talk about the POW movies in general.  Director Jack Lee doesn't have the time, sources, or budget to spend a lot of time giving background on the camp, a few title cards quickly explaining the situation. With nothing to do but sit around, these prisoners had countless hours to come up with plans of escape, and that's what they did.  These German POW camps were built specifically to hold them, the huts built hundreds of feet from the barbed wire so tunnels would be nearly impossible. The huts were built off the ground so sand from said tunnels couldn't be dispersed there. As desperate as it sounds, the 'Wooden Horse' plan was ingenious, and in reality the tunnel under the platform wasn't found until after the escape.

Like a lot of POW movies, it could be easy to get lost in the details of these highly involved, ridiculously detailed escape attempts.  But for 'Wooden Horse,' that's the strength of the movie. One scene shows the tunnel -- moving quite along toward the wire -- collapsing, a small hole opening up in the compound above. The prisoners must frantically think of something to cause a diversion to fill the hole, save their buried bunkmate, keep the German guards away, and do it all just seconds and minutes before roll call.  Perfectly simple in its execution, the scene is a prime example of how to build tension without any gimmicks, just a good twist.  The movie is at its best while in the camp as the tunnel digging gets underway.  A few montages show the tunnel proceeding, a process that ended up taking quite a few months.

What was disappointing is the second half of the movie after the actual attempt -- yes, three prisoners successfully escape.  The trick with these stories is that even getting out of the POW camps was a victory, but a small one.  These camps were hundreds of miles behind enemy lines in Germany and all over Europe.  The escapees now had to get out of a country full of military and intelligence officials frantically searching for them.  Unfortunately, none of the tension was really here after the trio of prisoners escaped, the story following Genn's Peter and Steel's John.  As they search for some means of reaching Sweden, the story even borders on boring when the momentum should be picking up, driving the story forward.  'Horse' limps to the finish, not quite sure where it should end, finishing on a note of dry British humor that didn't hit me right. It seemed too jokey for this type of movie.

No big names here in the cast although I've seen Genn in a few movies and know Tomlinson mostly for his acting in Disney movies, especially The Love Bug and Mary Poppins.  Without any particularly fascinating characters, they still manage to be interesting mostly because you're rooting for them to pull off this impossible escape.  Along with Steel as the bullheaded John, some of the POWs helping with the escape include Michael Goodliffe, Anthony Dawson, David Greene, Patrick Waddington as the Senior British Officer, Peter Burton and Bryan Forbes. I didn't recognize him at the time, but even Peter Finch makes a quick appearance as an Australian prisoner Genn meets in the hospital. No stars in the bunch, but several recognizable faces if you've seen any British movies from the 1950s and 1960s.  A good but somewhat disappointing POW story, one that could have been better, but is still worth a watch because you have to see this escape to believe it. It is available to watch at Youtube, starting HERE.

The Wooden Horse <--- TCM clips (1950): ** 1/2 /****