The Captive Heart **** (1946, Michael Redgrave, Rachel Kempson, Basil Radford, Jack Warner, Mervyn Johns, Jimmy Hanley, Gordon Jackson) – Classic Movie Review 2206

Director Basil Dearden’s touching and amusing 1946 British drama is one of the first and finest films to portray life in a British prisoner-of-war camp in Germany. His film for Ealing Studios is also notable for painting a vivid and sympathetic portrait of a group of wartime prisoners.

In the main story set in 1940, Michael Redgrave is superb as Captain Karel Hasek, a Czech concentration-camp escapee who assumes the identity of an English officer killed in action to escape the Gestapo, only to end up in a German prisoner of war camp.

There Captain Hasek, calling himself Captain Geoffrey Mitchell, must write to the dead man’s estranged wife Celia to avoid exposure. The other men try to find a way to get him out the camp and he plans to head for England to meet up with Celia. In poignant casting, Redgrave’s real-life wife Rachel Kempson plays Celia Mitchell, the officer’s widow.

The Ealing stalwart star character actors – Jack Warner (genial corporal), Gladys Henson (his wife), Gordon Jackson (blinded second lieutenant), Mervyn Johns and Jimmy Hanley (from the other ranks), Basil Radford, Ralph Michael, Derek Bond – effortlessly light up the support performances.

Realism is ensured as co-writer Guy Morgan was a PoW in Germany’s Marlag Milag Nord, where the camp sequences are shot. Angus MacPhail is the other as co-writer, basing the screenplay on a story by Patrick Kirwan.

Also in the cast are Karel Stepanek, Guy Middleton, Jack Lambert, Meriel Forbes, Rachel Thompson, Jane Barrett, Frederick Leister, Robert Wyndham, Margot Fitzsimmons, Peter Reynolds, Sam Kydd, James Harcourt, Frederick Richter, Elliott Mason, David Keir, Frederick Schiller, Jill Gibbs, David Wallbridge and Torin Thatcher.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2206

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