You won't be disappointed!

Fantastic!

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

The first must-see film of the year.

Hardy Kruger is excellent as Lieutenant Franz Von Werra, the only German POW to escape and make his way back to Germany in Roy Ward Baker's exciting, funny and very enjoyable war film "The One that Got Away". The formula isn't that much different from war movies where it was British POWs who were planning their escape but it was unusual to have a German as the hero particularly as the war had only ended some 12 years before. Baker, who the following year, gave us the superb "A Night to Remember" about the sinking of the Titanic, handles the material beautifully, (you really want Kruger to make it), while the splendidly crisp black and white cinematography is courtesy of Eric Cross.

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY (not to be confused with the low-rent Chris Ryan Gulf War story) is a black and white British wartime thriller with an unusual premise: the hero is a German captured by the British and determined to escape from them at all costs. The film has the hook of being a true story and turns out to be unmissable viewing.I admire the guts of the guys at Rank to make this film in the first place; they must have questioned their audience's willingness to respond to and even sympathise with one of the German 'bad guys' a mere twelve years after the end of WW2. To his credit, Hardy Kruger doesn't go out of his way to make his lead character likable; however, he is driven and polite, refusing to resort to violence in his bid for freedom, and that's what makes him such a great character.In addition, THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY has one of those excellent thriller set-ups in which every moment of the film is devoted to the thrills and suspense; no time for padding here. Roy Ward Baker contributes some of his finest directorial work, and the supporting cast of Michael Goodliffe, Terence Alexander, John Van Eyssen (DRACULA) and even 'ALLO 'ALLO's Richard Marner add to the overall experience. In fact, THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY is something of a minor classic...

"The One That Got Away" stars Hardy Kruger playing German fighter pilot Lieutenant Franz Von Werra shot down during the blitz. It is a 1957 movie based on the true story of the only German prisoner to escape from a British POW Camp. After a couple of escape attempts he is eventually shipped to Canada from where the authorities believed there would be no escape. Whilst travelling by train across Canada to his new camp he escapes by jumping from the train. He makes his way to the USA before it's entry into WW2 & then on to Mexico from where he got passage back to Germany. In reality Von Werra was a staunch, die-hard Nazi but in the movie his character is that of an apolitical, arrogant & cocky man, presumably to make him more appealing to British & American audiences. Kruger plays him with a mixture of boyish charm & dash so that well before the end of the movie even us Brits are rooting for him to succeed. The filming, scripting & the pacing of this suspenseful movie are all first rate & I have read that it is also a very popular movie in Germany. Presumably, this is because it depicts a German getting one over on the British. In real life Von Werra returned to active duty as a pilot but was shot down again & killed before the wars end. All in all, this is a cracking good story very well filmed & told.

This is one of the better WWII movies about an escape from a prisoner-of-war camp. The story is taut and suspenseful. The odds against success are high but we wind up rooting for the man anyway. The guy is handsome, competent, resourceful and self-confident to the point of smugness. No, the guy isn't played by Steve McQueen. There is no ball-bouncing in a prison cell. The man is Oberleutnant Franz von Werra, played by the German actor Hardy Kruger. Von Werra's Messerschmitt 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 captured on British soil who ever escaped and made it back to Germany. Von Werra turns out to be a committed German officer, determined to escape, and with enough drive, ingenuity and luck to escape from British camps three times. The first time sees him staggering for five days through mud and freezing rain to try to reach a British port and a neutral ship. When he's finally recaptured he's half dead. The British send him to a much tougher camp in the north. This time he organizes a tunnel dig, figures out how to make fake identity discs and how to convert rag-tag clothing into something passably civilian. On this break von Werra manages to talk himself onto a RAF base posing as a Dutch pilot. He's captured while seated in the cockpit of a Hurricane trying to get it started. He planned to fly back to Germany. Now the British ship him off to a prisoner-of-war camp in Canada. They figure that'll take the starch out of his determination to return to Germany. They didn't figure that von Werra would realize the significance of the United States being a neutral country and how close the train taking him to the camp would be to the Saint Lawrence River border. Sure enough, in the dead cold of a Canadian winter (January, 1941), he escapes from the train, works his way through the snow and freezing drizzle to the mostly frozen river. He finds a boat and finally is picked up on the American side. Our movie ends here, with a big smile on von Werra's frozen face and mumbled "thank yous" to the American border guard who found him. Through all of this the escapes are carefully shown with a lot of dramatic tension. You can't help but wind up hoping von Werra's persistence will pay off. Knowing he's an enthusiastic German pilot, a fighter ace, who is eager to get back to the battles takes a little of the edge off, but still... The One That Got Away is filmed in black and white. There are no sweeping, beautiful shots of the countryside. We're talking late fall and winter in Britain and Canada. It's cold and grey. If it's not snowing, it's raining. If it's not raining, it's drizzling. If it's not drizzling it's still so cold you'll want a fire going during the day. The acting is as cool and competent as the movie. And what about von Werra after he made it to America? The Canadians tried to get him back. The Americans wanted to send him back. While everyone was arguing his status, von Werra slipped across the U. S. border into Mexico, then made his way back to Germany by way of Peru, Bolivia, Brazil and Spain. He arrived in Berlin on April 18, 1941. He was assigned to fly on the Eastern front, became an ace again, then was sent with his unit to the Netherlands for rest and refitting. On October 21, 1941, his plane malfunctioned during a training flight and went down in the sea. His body was never recovered. Franz von Werra's luck had finally run out.