ianlouisiana Review of The Password Is Courage

The Password Is Courage (1962)

"I've got sixpence,jolly,jolly sixpence......"

[7/10 · 12 December 2012]

A group of British P.O.W.s march through the woods on the German/Polish border singing gaily;as they sit down to rest,one of them,the badly - injured Sergeant Major Coward(Mr D.Bogarde),slips away from the guards and makes his escape through what is obviously the English countryside till he finds what is equally obviously an English farmhouse where he persuades the owner to let him rest in the barn.A convoy of injured Wermacht soldiers suddenly arrive and are dumped on the barn floor around him.He slips a blanket over himself and is taken with the other casualties to a hospital where he is given apparently at random an Iron Cross.Such fun. Sgt Major Coward continues to play jolly japes on the surprisingly tolerant Germans,and all this schoolboy stuff gets a bit tedious after an hour or so. The Brits burst into song at the least opportunity,and a lot of comic - book Nazis sneer rather rudely at their prisoners.And that's about it,really. So what makes this extremely average British war film worth 7 out of 10?Well,it's very subjective,of course,but Mr Bogarde,to me,was never better than when freed from his "upper - class Englishman"leash,and the necessity for incessant sighs of boredom/angst/feyness. Here as Charles Coward he is playing a Londoner(but not your archetypal jolly cockney)shrewd,calculating and irrepressible. He plays him brilliantly;not condescending,never allowing us to doubt for a moment(at least not while the film is playing)that this is a believable character who finds himself in some unbelievable situations. And dear old James Hayter is endearingly bad as a Camp Commandant who is clearly more the former than the latter. Along with "Very Important Person","The Password is courage" is right at the top of the light - hearted P.O.W. movie pantheon,and Mr Bogarde's admirers are strongly recommended to watch it.