Saturday, January 24, 2015

January 24 - The One That Got Away

Today’s movie is a biographical drama with a scene that happens on January 24. Watch it tonight and enjoy.

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY    

      Franz von Werra, a Luftwaffe fighter pilot is shot down over Britain and taken prisoner. He resists all attempts to extract information from him and is sent to a camp. He makes an escape attempt but is defeated more by the English weather than by the British army. He is transferred to another camp. Here he is involved in digging a tunnel.  Werra pretends to be a Dutch pilot as part of a plan to steal an airplane. He almost succeeds. After this he is sent to Canada. While traveling by train to the camp on January 24, 1941[1:27:25 to 1:35:05] Werra jumped from the train. After almost freezing to death he managed to reach and cross the St. Lawrence river into the neutral United States. Werra returned to Germany and the Luftwaffe, but was shot down and killed

An interesting story about a little explored area of World War II history.

Top Secret Tales of World War II by William Breuer (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,
New York, 2000) at page 108 gives the date he leaped from the train

Producers - Julian Wintle and Earl St. John

Director - Roy Ward Baker

Screenplay - Howard Clewes

Runtime – 1 hour 51 minutes

Released -  December 2, 1957
   
Starring -

Hardy Krüger as Franz von Werra
Michael Goodliffe as RAF interrogator Captain Henderson Bell
Colin Gordon as Army interrogator
Alec McCowen as duty officer, Hucknall
Terence Alexander as RAF intelligence officer
Jack Gwillim as Commandant, Grizedale
Andrew Faulds as Lieutenant, Grizedale
Julian Somers as booking clerk
Harry Lockart as German prisoner
Robert Crewdson as German prisoner
George Mikell as German prisoner
George Roubicek as German prisoner
John Van Eyssen as German prisoner
Frederick Jaeger as German prisoner
Richard Marner as German prisoner
Paul Hansard as German prisoner

Copyright by Ivan Walters in 2015






No comments:

Post a Comment