Albert, R.N. (a.k.a. Break to Freedom) (1953)

Directed by Lewis Gilbert; produced by Daniel M Angel

Constant escape attempts from Marlag-O, a German prison camp for captured Allied naval officers, have been frustrated by the security and watchfulness of the guards and the intelligence of the commandant. Now, one of the prisoners (Anthony Steel) has come up with an intriguing plan. Why break through or under the wire fences when once a week, the prisoners were taken outside? He conceives of an idea to escape during the weekly trip to the bath-house, just beyond the grounds of the camp. It involves fake identity papers, women’s clothes, reliance on routine - and a realistic dummy, named Albert.

There have been many entries in the prison-escape genre; many were produced in the wake of the Second World War, especially in Britain, when the memory of genuine exploits were fresh. Some of the most thrilling and interesting were based on reality. Albert, R.N. is one such story. As with many, fact is often less credible than fiction: if the idea of passing off an immobile mannequin as a prisoner, under the eyes of notoriously vigilant sentries, were attempted in a work of make-believe, it would be laughable. Yet it was attempted.

Albert, R.N. has some fictional elements, certainly, but they are successfully integrated into the true story - or perhaps the integration was the other way around. In any case, the drama between the prisoners, and within the men themselves, works. The oft-used gimmick of a group of odd-balls is eschewed for realism in the characters. They are certainly diverse, but not unreasonably so.

The acting is uniformly good, headed by Jack Warner, already a veteran performer, as the senior prisoner-officer. The direction is also effective, and gives several tense scenes (such as the unexpected search of the prisoners’ quarters), when even the security of being portrayed by a top-billed actor doesn’t mean a character is out of danger. The running time, 88 minutes, doesn’t leave much room for diversion; indeed, we are pitched directly into the plan. It also means that the detail found in other escape films (eg. The Great Escape, The Password is Courage) is left out. Nonetheless, there is education in the entertainment, such as when we learn that ‘the room’ (the barrack in which a handful of prisoners live) sometimes has a man’s greater loyalty than the camp as a whole.

Stressing the small-scale endeavour, the fears and hopes of individuals, Albert, R.N. provides an interesting and, at times, exciting look into the ingenuity, improvisation and humour with which captured officers in the Second World War coped with their incarceration - and sometimes used to escape it.