Review for The One That Got Away

‘The One That Got Away’ is a WWII prisoner of war escape film with a twist. It’s about a German prisoner’s escape attempts from both British and (later) Canadian POW camps. It was released almost a decade after the end of the war and manages to resist being just a jingoistic anti-German piece – although it rightfully takes a few well-deserved swipes at Nazism along the way.
It’s actually very good too. I had all but forgotten the film until watching it again on this new Blu-Ray edition when it all came flooding back. Despite its almost two hour running time it manages to maintain pace and tension throughout and by the time you get to the film’s end, although you may not sympathise with the principal character’s views, you cannot but help admire his tenacity. The fact that it was based on fact makes it all the more remarkable.

Oberleutnant Franz von Werra, played by native German Hardy Kruger (in his first of many British films and television shows) is shot down over England on September 5, 1940. He is captured, interrogated and sent to a prisoner of war camp for officers. He turned out to be the only German prisoner of war captured in Britain who managed to escape and successfully return to his homeland.

We see him escape not just once in this film but three times, with the maxim ‘third time lucky’ proving to be most apt.

Oberleutnant Franz von Werra is a charismatic and handsome young pilot who will stop at nothing to make his escape back to Germany. Although his claim to anyone who will listen is that he wants to return to the war effort for his country, a partial back-story is added to help us empathise with him on a human level. We see on two occasions him looking at the photo of a lost love who we assume is the real reason for his tenacity.

At first he wanders to a rail station where he blags his way to a local RAF camp where he hopes to steal a plane and fly home. Telling both the police and the duty officer that he is a Dutch pilot on a secret mission they believe him up to a point, though he is eventually rumbled as a well-known German pilot who is seen as something of a hero in Germany, appearing on magazine covers and the like.

The first escape is made when he drops behind a dry-stone wall during an exercise break. Nearly dying of exposure, his brave run to freedom once again ends in capture and a period of solitary confinement.

The second time he escapes, it’s through a tunnel and his journey to get aboard a ship in a port is a long and gruelling one. Eventually he blags his way on to an RAF base posing as a Dutch pilot. The Duty Officer finally becomes suspicious and he's captured while seated in the cockpit of a Hurricane trying to get it started.

Eventually, on route to a new prison in Canada he makes a brave escape into arctic conditions by jumping from a moving train. His plan is to walk across the frozen river at Montreal to neutral American territory on the other side. The final scenes as he battles against broken ice and raging waters in blizzard conditions are really breath-taking. Although the end slate claims that it was ‘Filmed at Pinewood’, the exterior sequences filmed in Northern Britain and Canada are really quite incredible.

It’s worth noting that Hardy Kruger was a prisoner of war himself who escaped from the Americans on three occasions in real-life, though whether these attempts were comparable I have no idea. It certainly adds to the actors credibility for the part though.
The film is tightly directed by none other than Roy Ward Baker, perhaps best known for his ITC work (The Saint, Jason King, The Protectors) as well as countless other classic cult TV series and movies including ‘The Avengers’ and ‘The Vampire Lovers’.

The Blu-ray image quality is variable – sometimes startlingly good but occasionally some of the (presumed) natural film grain shows through, particularly on exterior shots. It’s a big leg up from the previous version I had; which might have been a newspaper freebie. I presume the transfer comes from the same stock as the DVD version from Network which I believe has been available for a while.

Extras are confined to a trailer and an image gallery.

Well worth picking up.