The Password Is Courage

The Password is Courage is a 1962 film based on John Castle's 1954 Second World War memoir of the same name. It was written, produced and directed by Andrew L. Stone and stars Dirk Bogarde, Maria Perschy and Alfred Lynch. The film is a lighthearted take on the true story of Sergeant-Major Charles Coward, written under the pseudonym John Castle by Ronald Charles Payne and John Williams Garrod.

Contents

 * 1 Plot
 * 2 Cast
 * 3 Production
 * 4 Reception
 * 5 References
 * 6 External links

Plot[edit]
Charles Coward (Dirk Bogarde) is a senior British NCO incarcerated in the POW camp Stalag VIII-B. He encourages his fellow inmates to escape, and tries to humiliate the German guards at every opportunity.

Coward first attempts to escape by masquerading as a wounded German soldier. He is taken to hospital, where his identity is revealed, but not before being awarded theIron Cross as he lies in his hospital bed. He then digs a tunnel, and, using a map he obtains from an attractive Polish resistance contact (Maria Perschy),[N 1] escapes with fellow prisoner Bill Pope (Alfred Lynch). They are captured at a railway station.

After the failure of that escape, they then manage to escape again by masquerading as workmen clearing rubble in a rural area. After learning that the American front line is only a mile away, they steal an unattended fire engine to get past the German soldiers in between. Their plan works - a German troop convoy on the road moves aside to allow them to speed past to get to a non-existent fire - and they drive off to freedom.

Cast[edit]
Cast notes:
 * Albert Finney made his first film appearance as a German soldier guarding POWs.

Production[edit]
The recreation of German prisoner of war camps took place amongst the English countryside.

The Password Is Courage is based on John Castle's biography of Sergeant-Major Charles Coward. Coward has a cameo appearance in the film during a party scene, and also served as technical advisor during the filming, shot entirely in England.[2]

The film raised some debate amongst ex-prisoners of war. There are no known survivors of any of Coward's escapes and the National Ex-Prisoner of War Association in their Autumn 2006 newsletter, has suggested that some of the stories in his biography might have happened to other men in the camps, with some events "borrowed" for the book and, subsequently, for the film.[3] Shimon Peres, President of Israel, also disclosed that his father, Yitzchak Perski, who immigrated from Poland to Mandatory Palestine in 1932, had joined the British Army in 1939 and was captured by the Germans at Greece in 1941. He had been a fellow prisoner of Coward. He further claimed that some of the film's episodes are based on his father's real-life exploits.[4]

The original cinema version of The Password Is Courage had a sequence set in Auschwitz concentration camp, illustrated by drawings.[5] This sequence is cut from the version shown on television broadcasts, but the credit for the drawings remains in the credits list at the end of the film.[6][N 2]

Reception[edit]
The Password is Courage received mixed reviews from critics as the true life story of a prisoner of war done in a jocular vein was considered inauthentic. The review in Variety noted: "Andrew L. Stone’s screenplay, based on a biog of Sergeant-Major Charles Coward by John Castle, has pumped into its untidy 116 minutes an overdose of slapstick humour. Result is that what could have been a telling tribute to a character of guts and initiative, the kind that every war produces, lacks conviction.".[7]

References[edit]
Explanatory notes
 * 1) Jump up^ Despite the film's title, the password actually turns out to be "cleaning cloths", which Bogarde's character discovers when he meets Maria Perschy's character
 * 2) Jump up^ Why this sequence has been cut is not known. Suggested explanations include that the events described did not happen; that the sequence is inappropriate in an otherwise broad comedy and that a shorter run time required the cut of a self-standing sub-plot.