anthonyrwaldman The Wooden Horse is a real life World War Two escape story. Stalag-Luft III is supposed to be escape proof but this is proved wrong by three incredible escapers. The film is divided into two parts. Firstly, the escape from the camp and then the series of adventures while travelling through Germany and occupied Danmark. The method of escape is ingenious; a tunnel built under a vaulting horse that ends under the camp perimeter wire. The escapers of course are all officers (after all this is a Brtish film) and the camp itself has an air of an English public (private) school. The Germans are baited as if they were form masters or prefects. The film follows Eric William's book The Wooden Horse quite closely. There is an omission though. In the book the two escapers played brilliantly by Leo Genn and Anthony Steele meet up with members of the Danish resistance at a secluded farmhouse. One Jewish member of the resistance tells the escapers about the deportation of Jews and how members of the resistance helped Jews get to Sweden. Another member of the resistance tells of The Schalberg Corps an organization of Danish Nazis who the resistance battle with. However, The Wooden Horse is a very good film and well worth seeing.

SpitfireIXB This is the true story of how three British soldiers escaped from the German Prisoner Of War (POW) camp, Stalag Luft III, during the Second World War. This is the same POW camp that was the scene for the Great Escape which resulted in the murder of 50 re-captured officers by the Gestapo (and later was made into a very successful movie of the same name). While the other POWs in Stalag Luft III are busy working on their three massive tunnels (known as Tom, Dick & Harry), two enterprising British prisoners came up with the idea to build a wooden vaulting horse which could be placed near the compound wire fence, shortening the distance they would have to tunnel from this starting point to freedom. The idea to build their version of the Trojan Horse came to them while they were discussing 'classic' attempts for escape and observing some POWs playing leap-frog in the compound.Initially containing one, and later with two POWs hidden inside, the wooden horse could be carried out into the compound and placed in almost the same position, near the fence, on a daily basis. While volunteer POWS vaulted over the horse, the escapees were busy inside the horse digging a tunnel from under the vaulting horse while positioned near the wire, under the wire, and into the woods. The story also details the dangers that two of the three escaping POWs faced while traveling through Germany and occupied Europe after they emerged from the tunnel. All three POWs who tried to escape actually hit home runs (escaped successfully to their home base.). The Wooden Horse gives a very accurate and true feeling of the tension and events of a POW breakout. The movie was shot on the actual locations along the route the two POWs traveled in their escape. Made with far less a budget than The Great Escape, The Wooden Horse is more realistic if not more exciting than The Great Escape and never fails to keep you from the edge of your seat rooting for the POWs to make good their escape. The story line is crisp and the acting rings true and is taut enough to keep the tension up all the way through the movie. The Wooden Horse is based on the book of the same name by one of the escapees, Eric Williams, and is, by far, the best POW escape story ever made into a movie. Some of the actual POWs were used in the movie to reprise their existence as prisoners in Stalag Luft III. I give this movie a well deserved ten.

richard-meredith27 In 1943, a group of RAF Officers, including Eric Wiiliams, decide to escape from a POW camp using a Gymnastic Vaulting Horse in the courtyard. In 1950, it was decided to film his account, and it kick-started a peculiar British Film Genre- the Military Prison Camp story that reached its apogee in Danger Within (1959).The Wooden Horse is one of the quietest films I have ever watched. There are no great dramatic moments, but a steady storyline eventually builds to a climax that has more tension because the story doesn't give way for unlikely drama, jump cuts or jacked up (somethings about to happen!) music. It is utterly of its time and works beautifully.Leo Glenn, Anthony Steel and David Tomlinson lead a curiously low key cast of extras and (I suspect) non-actors. Without exception, all are constantly mono-tonal and quiet. They keep emotion out of their roles. As so many were, until recently, ex-service, I suspect they recreated their war time roles as 'Officers and Gentlemen'.This unemotional approach does not detract from any dramatic tension. On the contrary, unlike most Wartime Escape Films, the story doesn't end at the barbed wire: and that fact alone keeps me glued to the end.

callejon The Wooden Horse was one of the first "great" escape stories from World War II, telling the true story of Eric Williams and others in their escape from Stalag-Lufft III in October of 1943. I really like this film, but had to by it on VHS from Amazon in England and get it transferred from PAL format in the U.S. I read the book when I was in hight school, after having seen a portion of the film in the early 60's on T.V. The taunt drama of Peter and John trying to escape from Germany during the war is more realistic than the treck of the escapes portrayed in the Great Escape. This film is a lost treasure, that should be made more available to American audiences.