Movie Review - The Password Is Courage

I've seen this film a lot. So much in fact, I've lost count. I always confuse it with "The Foreman Goes To France" because of the very similar type of endings that they both have. Dirk Bogarde is our hero, a British Army Sergeant-Major (who as an enlisted man later goes on to give his word as an Officer, slight mistake there). He's a prisoner of war and by the sounds of it he's been escaping from lots of places hence him being in a rather unpleasant camp as the film starts.

Him and his best pal are constantly trying to escape or wind up The Goons. Most of the escapes get scuppered but they are often successful at upsetting the Germans and hindering them. They are digging a tunnel and disposing of the dirt in a storyline that was directly stolen by the film The Great Escape. Perhaps they were using the same techniques in a different camp. When pushed in tight situations people will come up with the same ideas in different places.

Dirk is moved by The Germans to a lumber camp on a work detail to command some "lazy" troops. But The Germans have sent Dirk and his best pal into a trap to be killed by people who think they are spies, traitors or 5th columnists. Dirk fights his way through and defuses the situation bringing the so called "lazy" troops over to his way of thinking, to upset and confound The Germans. They manage to burn down the lumber camp and get sent to a train yard. At the train yard they sabotage trains, sending them to the wrong places.

Finally Dirk makes contact with The Polish underground who give them maps and assistance to escape. Oh, and the password was actually "Cleaning Cloths", not Courage. They are sent back to their original camp and escape through a tunnel that was dug too short (again, another idea that The Great Escape stole from them). An old soldier with an accordion pretends to be drunk and saves a whole hut full of escaping men from being discovered.

After a poor attempt at buying train tickets, making a fellow train passenger suspect them, they are caught by a badly forged travel document with a logo facing the wrong way. Dirk and his best pal finally escape posing as workers repairing bombed buildings who are finally met by retreating American soldiers telling them they are only a mile away from the Allied lines, but there are thousands of Germans in their way.

Of course they steal a Fire Engine and The Germans stand aside to let them through and finally on the road to freedom. A good ending and an excellent film.