source: The Password Is Courage

Trailer—The Password Is Courage

The Password Is Courage

Based on a true life autobiography of a British serviceman. This film relates the tale of his relentless campaign to cause as much bother as possible while residing in a WWII POW camp. A Good story but lacks the script, budget and catchy theme tune of the still marvellous "Great Escape".

This film was made without a Hollywood plot and mega stars. The story is one of personal courage and one man`s refusal to ignore war crimes. Charley Coward was a true hero he never gave up . This movie is one of breed of true stories without glamour

Extremely enjoyable POW yarn based on the real-life exploits of one, Charley Coward, (Dirk Bogarde), who made it his mission as a prisoner during the Second World War to make life hell for the Germans before finally escaping. Andrew L Stone wrote and directed the picture in an unusually jocular fashion and a host of British character actors make for a rumbustious bunch or prisoners as well as the odd German, including the always reliable Reginald Beckwith as a very camp commandant. It's no great shakes as a movie but it's certainly entertaining with Stone throwing a lot of broad comedy into the mix without sacrificing any of the basic excitement.

Although this prisoner-of-war picture packs all the familiar ingredients into its plot, somehow it fails to come across even a fraction as effectively as thirty or forty similar movies I could name. Of course, the cast presents a considerable stumbling block. Dirk Bogarde is the only actor who seems to be pulling his weight. Everyone else turns in such lightweight portrayals, you'd think they were vacationing in a holiday camp. Even the Germans are an unconvincing lot. On the plus side, the movie does present some spectacular moments for railroad buffs, and the photography is suitably bleak. All told, I suppose the movie would offer reasonable entertainment for those who haven't seen "The Wooden Horse", "The Colditz Story", "The Great Escape", etc. But for those who are well acquainted with these far more powerful accounts, "Password" is a limp offering indeed.

This film is a biography about Sergeant Major Charles Coward (played by Dirk Bogarde), a most unusual prisoner of war during WWII. I say most unusual because he was constantly escaping or causing mayhem. But be forewarned...the film is not exactly his wartime experiences. Instead of showing the full range of his life, it tends to pick out events that were humorous and make the film like a less funny and more intelligent version of "Hogan's Heroes". The darker aspects of his life, such as his exposure and work with the Jews at Auschwitz were omitted from the picture in order to present the German soldiers as buffoons narrative...a very incomplete picture to say the least. There is no evidence of the SS, massacres or death camps in this film. Now this is NOT to say it's a bad film. Supposedly the events portrayed, with a few exceptions, did occur and Coward's life was amazing and made for an interesting film. Well worth seeing...but it could have been better.

'The Password is Courage', a story of prisoners of war based on the biography of a certain Seargant Coward, is a strange film. On one hand, the low production values give it the feel of a wartime propaganda romp (even though it was in fact made in 1962); on the other hand, Dirk Bogardde's cheeky chappy persona and some comical portraits of the Germans seem rather to predict the coming of "'Allo 'Allo". In spite of the generally amateurish feel, the key scenes still convey some tension; but most later movies on this subject possess more bite and cynicism about the nature of humans under duress on both sides of the wire.

People watching this film expecting a serious WW2 film will be disappointed. This wee film is pretty much rooted in the essence of good British Humor. The story is based on a biography of the real life Charlie Coward, played nicely by the "Idle of the Odeon" Dirk Bogarde and plays out like separate chapters of his story during WW2 spending most of his time irritating the guards. When is comes to POW films I always go for "The Colditz Story" as the greatest and this is the light hearted side order. Good fun. 3 out of 5