Dedicated to British prisoners of war, this 1946 war drama from England’s Ealing Studio follows the lives of a handful of British soldiers from their capture in France in 1940 through their return home at the end of the war. It opens on their march through Europe to a POW camp in Germany, with the camera picking out individuals from the group and giving us flashbacks to remind us of their civilian lives and the people they left behind. But along with the familiar array of characters—the handsome young officer (Derek Bond) who believes his newlywed wife is cheating on him, the shy boy (Gordon Jackson) who breaks it off with his sweetheart after he’s blinded in battle, a pair of older working-class friends and business partners (Mervyn Johns and Jack Warner) who stick together through everything—is a ringer. Michael Redgrave plays a Czech fighter who escaped from a Nazi concentration camp and takes the identity papers of a dead British officer before he is recaptured. He becomes the dramatic center of the ensemble piece as the British soldiers protect his true identity from a snooping SS officer and he is forced to keep up his pretense by writing to the dead officer’s estranged wife. As his compassion rekindles her hope for reconciliation, he falls in love with her. Redgrave’s character was inspired by a real-life figure but his journey was fictionalized for the film. Basil Radford, so often cast as a pompous figure of ridicule, plays the paternal ranking officer who stands up to the camp commandant to protect his men. It’s essentially a post-war propaganda piece that celebrates the spirit of the British soldier (there is plenty of stiff upper lip strength and patriotic sacrifice) and pays tribute to the hardships suffered by the prisoners of war who spent years in captivity. As a piece of dramatic fiction, it’s more dutiful than compelling, a melodramatic mix of tragedy and triumphs with an emphasis on the latter, and a film that ultimately presents every British soldier in a heroic light, but it is eventful and features a lively mix of characters. It was one of the top-grossing British films of 1946 and it competed in the Cannes Film Festival, and it helped establish director Basil Dearden as a top British filmmaker. It’s perhaps most interesting as an example of immediate post-war filmmaking confronting the war, and it was partially shot on location in the English zone of occupied Germany. A strong option purchase. Aud: H, C, P. (S. Axmaker)