thinker1691 Kendal Burt based his exciting action novel " The One That Got Away " on the real-life exploits of German Hero Franz Von Werra. Roy Ward Baker directs (Hardy Krüger) to a the role of a life time. Although many other British actors passed on the chance, they did so to their regret. Having acted on other top tier movies, Kruger displays the rugged, top notch acting ability which has garnered him a great deal of fulsome praise and awards from Hollywood's elite. This story is based on a true life story tells of Franz Werra a German fighter pilot who was shot down by the English and soon finds himself in a British Prisoner of War camp. However, with sheer skill, guts and dogged determination he takes the English to task and escapes. Despite the enormous physical challenges, Werra proves his metal and wins the admiration of both his jailers and the audiences. Hardy offer a sterling performance and one which marks this movie for greatness and a sure bet to win him a nomination to become a true Classic. Excellent fare for the collector. ****

kenjha During WWII, a German flier is captured in England, but makes numerous attempts to escape. While there are exciting moments, the narrative is too episodic to sustain interest. Instead of a well-planned and executed escape a la "The Great Escape," it's a series of escapes attempted from different venues. None of the escape sequences are clever in plan or execution. Although this is based on a true story, it is hard to believe that the British would be so gullible and so easily fooled by the German POW. The filmmakers apparently didn't care about suspense, as the title gives away the ending. This was Kruger's first starring role in an English language film, and he does OK.

ianlouisiana Luftwaffe PoWs are given a contemptuous reality check by a British officer after an outburst of "Seig Heils" has greeted the news of an imminent departure to Canada.For all their arrogance they are still captives and the expected Nazi invasion of England has not materialised. Oberleutnant Franz von Werra (Herr H.Kruger - himself a former Nazi) has already tried to escape on two occasions and he sees this transfer as a golden opportunity to reach a neutral United States and eventually return to Germany to continue his personal war."The one that got away" tells the story of this brave,determined and resourceful pilot who eventually did manage to make a "Home Run" only to be killed in action a few months later,but not before supplying his superiors with vital information about the methods of British Military Intelligence. By any reasonable standard Oberleutnant von Werra was an heroic figure,but,as portrayed by Herr Kruger he was not overconcerned with displays of false modesty nor overburdened with conscience where making false claims of aerial victories.Nevertheless Kruger succeeds in making von Werra a figure one could sympathise with if not actually like. Set mainly in the Lake District and the more remote parts of the midlands,the movie shows an England struggling to sustain "total war" single-handedly,bombed incessantly by the Luftwaffe in the prelude to invasion and desperately depending on "The Few" to defend it whilst most of its young men were fighting for their lives in Northern France. The soldiers left behind to guard the PoW camps were often the old,the lame and the halt,only the remoteness of their locations kept a mass exodus at bay. The British are generally shown as rather a smug lot,complacent rather than over confident of victory,as if no other result were thinkable. Very fortunately for them Japan would eventually play into America's hands and from the "Day of Infamy" onwards the top ranks in the German High Command realised the inevitability of the final outcome. But in the heady days of 1940,the ill-starred von Werra and his colleagues looked forward to marching down Pall Mall in a Victory Parade that might well have presaged the beginning of the "Thousand Year Reich". But,tenacious and bloody-minded,the Brits hung on and history took its course. One suspects that von Werra,as his plane span out of control into the sea,might have wished he had seen the war out in the safety of a PoW camp in Canada - but - on the other hand,the brave and dedicated warrior that he was,he might have been content to have died for his Fatherland.What a terrible waste it all was.

Liedzeit I was lucky to find a DVD of this film. In my memory the film was excellent and seeing it again after 30 years or so I was not disappointed. As an escape film it works beautifully. Someone tries - and in the end succeeds, as the title suggests - to escape from prison camp. What makes this film special is that it is a German who is portrayed as the hero. As a child it was the first time that I ever saw a war movie with a Good German in it (or at the very least not a bad and/or stupid one). Hardy Krüger was of course brilliant and he later did a similar job in Flight of the Phoenix where he played an arrogant but in the end sympathetic German. And the film does not even make the soldier a secret enemy of the Nazi regime. He is portrayed as a loyal German soldier who sees it as his duty to escape and to continue fighting the allies. For me to see that English film makers where able to make a film like this made me very optimistic. They avoid using clichés. And funny enough, they confirm the cliché about the English, namely that they are fair and good sportsmen, because that's what we have here. A game where the object is to escape from prison. A German wins and this is what we see. Thank you.