James Hitchcock Films about prisoner of war camps ("The Wooden Horse", "The Colditz Story", "Stalag 17", "Bridge on the River Kwai", "King Rat") were popular in both the American and British cinemas during the fifties and sixties, and "Danger Within" is another in this tradition. The film is set in a POW camp in Northern Italy during the summer of 1943, a camp which houses British, French and other Allied captives. The British officers come up with a number of ingenious escape plans, but the Italians succeed in foiling them all, and many inmates begin to suspect that there is an informer in their ranks. The prime candidate is a Greek officer, Lieutenant Coutoules, and when he is found murdered there is no shortage of suspects.The film is unusual in that the captors are Italian rather than German or Japanese. In British and American war films of this period (and occasionally in films made during the war itself, such as "Sahara"), Italians were generally portrayed in a sympathetic light, as unwilling partners in the Axis who had been dragged into the war by Mussolini's folly, but in this film they are the villains. (Their German allies only make a very brief appearance). Indeed, the main Italian character, Captain Benucci, is a vicious sadist, quite as brutal as any Nazi. In reality German and Italian guards were generally unwilling to shoot escaping prisoners if they could avoid it- in all the many attempted escapes from Colditz only one British prisoner was shot dead- but Benucci takes a psychopathic delight in gunning down escapers when he could quite easily capture them alive.The film stars a number of leading British actors of the period, including Richard Attenborough, Michael Wilding, Bernard Lee, Dennis Price and Richard Todd, who seemed to star in just about every British war film that didn't star John Mills or Kenneth More. Despite all the talent on display, however, the film is something of a disappointment. I think the main reason is that it introduces a number of serious themes and then fails to develop them properly. After the death of Coutoules it appears to be developing into an unusual murder mystery, but the mystery is quickly cleared up and well before the end of the film we learn the identity of the murderer and his motive. (It has already become apparent that the Greek was not the informer).We also learn who the real informer is, but the film misses the opportunity to examine his motives and the question of what might persuade a man to betray his country in this way. Another potentially interesting theme which is not explored is the division among the British officers between those who are keen to escape as soon as possible and those who prefer to sit out the war in the safety of the camp. The former regard the latter as dishonourable and the latter regard the former as foolhardy. These potentially interesting themes, however, are never explored properly, being subordinated to an implausible "Boy's Own" ending in which Benucci and the traitor get their come-uppance and the whole of the camp make a mass breakout under cover of watching a production of "Hamlet". Not, by any means, as good a film as it could have been. 5/10

ianlouisiana "The prison camp was full of British officers who had sworn to die - rather than be captured".So the late - lamented Mr Milligan gently guyed the British P.O.W. film genre which by 1959 was beginning to run out of steam.Let's face it,blokes digging tunnels,comic opera "funny" or sadistic guards,walking around with trousers filled with dirt from the tunnel and doing endless calisthenics in flapping gym shorts can only have a limited appeal to even uncritical English audiences. However,adding the rather louche Mr M.Wilding and nice but dim Mr P.Jones as a kind of chorus was a nice touch by Bryan Forbes in "Danger within" which is otherwise merely competent with all concerned acting within their comfort zones. I am a great admirer of Mr B.Forbes as an actor,writer and director but I don't feel he was pushing the envelope here in any other department. I once worked with a former R.A.F. aircrew who,a week after being gazetted with his DFC was shot down over the Ruhr and spent three years as a guest of our European partners.He told me 90% of the P.O.Ws simply wanted to do their time as peacefully and painlessly as possible and get home in one piece. Those that planned escapes were avoided like Ronnie Stephens the sewer rat in "Danger within",albeit for different reasons. As former officers typed away at their memoirs,that aspect of their imprisonment seems to have somehow been downgraded.

richard-meredith27 This is one of my favourite POW films. But in fact 'Danger Within' is not just a POW film as such, it also falls into the Britfilm murder mystery genre.The source for the story is a Michael Gilbert mystery 'Death in Captivity'published in the mid 1950's. It,s a cracking read and compliments the film as some narrative elements had to be changed for filmed purposes. The play within the story is different, and motivation of hero and villain is slightly more efficiently. It also gives you a glimpse into what happened after the mass escape.For the Buff, spot Michael Caines first screen appearance, note the film's technical relationship to 'The League of Gentlemen', made in 1960 and watch the two on the same bill for a rewarding afternoon viewing.To my mind this film also lifted Terrance Alexander from the rather predicable comedy character roles he was playing to top notch light drama actor. And Bernard Lee once again proved how dependable and useful he was in films filled with better known faces.

Alice Liddel A rare bright spot in a benighted genre, this British POW drama avoids familiarity not only by avoiding stiff upper lip and grey morality in favour of wit, tension and Hollywood stereotype, but also by a clever use of the metaphors of theatre. Most British war films parade their stifling docudrama-style 'realism'; this is often an excuse for imaginative paucity. 'Danger Within' uses the idea of play to question some of the received myths about the British Second World War.Part of the novelty lies in its North Italian setting - we're so used to nefarious Nazis and brutal Japanese. Not that it makes much difference - the main villain, Capitano Benucci, is a Nazi-trained sadist, who imagines he's suavity incarnate with his sophisticated cigars, laidback walk, time goatie, and clipped, ironical speech. But the blanching sun makes a nice change, giving a parched, sandy feel, and the notorious stereotype of Italian incompetence makes the various plot points believable.What makes this narrative absorbing is not the usual will-they-or-won't-they escape plot, but a kind of detective story. No matter how ingenious the efforts of the escape committee - and there is a brilliant one here involving sewers, light-switches, misplaced cigarettes and rugby posts- there is always the same welcoming committee of armed fascists ready to mow them down. It's clear there's an informer, but who?The obvious culprit is a shifty-looking Greek. This is the film's first daring piece of iconoclasm. There is a lot of anti-Italian racism throughout, but that can be attributed to understandable wartime emotionalism, where contempt for what Fascism stands for is expressed in xenophobia. But the Greek's only obvious credentials for being an informer is the fact of being a Greek, a little small, sweaty, oily, you know, naturally sneaky. When his name is called at roll-call, a wit hurls a dead rat at the officer; we remember Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda that used similar analogies.This is a strangely unideological war these men are fighting - there is no rhetoric about liberty and democracy; this is a prison film in which the criminals, all professionals, want to escape. Everything centres on the job in hand, with loyalty vouchsafed for anyone who agrees. This lack of sentimentality is refreshing an a genre stuffed with secular piety.Even better is the working of the theatrical metaphors. The brilliant opening scene features a prisoner disguised as the commandant - their fatal meeting creates a mirror effect that echoes in the following narrative about, not only duplicity, but also people who don't seem to be what they are, including old fops who turn out to be very brave men. Of course, this is a situation where the Law are murderous criminals, and the prisoners are democratic saviours, ambiguous enough in itself. It creates a world where you don't know who to trust, especially dangerous in a situation where loyalty and trust need to be givens. This idea of acting and pretending (extending to the Capitano) culminates in the attempted escape during 'Hamlet', with the immortal Dennis Price in a mop wig as the Prince. It's a shame they couldn't have picked a more apposite play - King Lear, perhaps? - or worked it in better, with a play-within-a-play scene, for instance, to reveal the murderer. But that would have been silly, contrived, arty, and no British war film would ever be that. Michael Wilding is a bizarre sight in this testosterone heavy atmosphere; even more surprising is how excellent he is with his old queen patter and reserves of steel.