The Wooden Horse had been a smash hit so here is Anthony Steel in another POW tale based on truth about some Brits who busted out due to using a wacky gimmick - here the gimmick is a dummy, who they used to confuse the Germans at roll call. That's not a bad idea, although not enough to justify a feature film so they pad out the running time with a mystery over whether there is a traitor among the prisoners giving information to the Germans (leading to comparisons to Stalag 13 which aren't flattering to this), one prisoner worried that his wife has had an affair with another one of the prisoners, some squabbling, an inevitable American/Canadian character, a nice German to contrast with a nasty one (Anton Diffring).
It's not particularly interesting. Jack Warner isn't in good form, but then he doesn't have much to do; Steel is actually quite good, getting to make the dummy and flare up in an argument or two (what do you know? He can flare up!). Some very ordinary acting from the support cast and a surprising lack of suspense despite some scenes which on paper should have worked e.g. shooting some escaping prisoners. And it falls into the trap that a lot of British POW films fell into of making things seem like a jolly school jape.
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