People are voting emotionally.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

THE WOODEN HORSE is another decent WW2 prisoner-of-war movie, this time set in an internment camp for British officers run by the German air force. Once again it has the hook of being a true story to make it completely irresistible for viewers, and once again there's very little to dislike about this picture: it's well shot, well acted, and generally entertaining.The story is about a group of prisoners who decide to escape by digging a tunnel beneath the exercise ground of their internment camp. Their cover will be the titular item, a horse used for vaulting by the exercising prisoners. What follows is laden with suspense and decent performances with the likes of Leo Genn, Anthony Steel, and David Tomlinson doing their bit as the prisoners determined to escape. While the story does lose some of the momentum in the latter section, it remains engaging right up until the closing credits. It's not quite ALBERT, R.N., but it's watchable all the same.

Intriguing WW 2 POW movie.Set in a German POW camp, Stalag Luft III, in 1943, the story of a daring escape attempt. The British POWs, mostly airmen, have been searching for a way to tunnel out of the camp. Their huts are too far from the perimeter for the conventional methods. They hit upon the idea of setting up a wooden vaulting horse in the middle of camp, ostensibly for exercise, but in reality as a starting point for a tunnel...Quite interesting and exciting story. The use of the wooden horse is a bit far-fetched so it helps to suspend disbelief. Is quite an ingenious idea though and the planning, building, scrounging and subterfuge that goes on around it is quite engaging. The best part however is what happens once they're out - very suspenseful.However, The Wooden Horse will always be compared to The Great Escape, and this doesn't help The Wooden Horse. The Great Escape has more action, bigger names, the coolness of Steve McQueen and is based on a true story and has better production values. This all said, The Wooden Horse must claim some, if not all, credit for The Great Escape being made, as it started the POW escape genre and The Great Escape, 13 years later, was the high point of it.

It begins in a leisurely way, with British POWs in a camp, chatting and grumbling and being a little impudent with the German guards. On the whole it fits into the often splendid genre of post-war British films.The POWs are more bored than abused. The sleeping quarters each house about four men. They sleep on comfortable bunks and wear pajamas. There's even a piano somewhere playing Mozart. In the hospital there are Beethoven records. But, driven by a desire to spend money, find a girl, and get a good meal, they begin to build a tunnel out of the camp.The hut nearest the wire is too far away to use as a base, so the men construct a wooden horse to use on the fields outside; that is, a vaulting platform with a padded top, the sort of thing many of us had to cope with in high school gym class. Each day, when the men are not busy peeling potatoes, one of them will be hidden inside the hollow box-like structure and work on the tunnel, disguising the entrance with dirt-covered sandbags. During the practice runs, most of the POWs leap the horse easily but one continues to lose his nerve at the last minute and smash belly first into the structure. He's demoted to cheerleader.The German guards are not the raving maniacs of the war years. Most are reasonable and, as in real life, a bit old for combat and worn out. This doesn't stop one of the Unteroffiziers from examining the vaulting horse in private and, after looking around to make sure no one is watching, he leaps across the top lengthwise, outdoing all the Brits, and grins with silent pride.The work proceeds and there are moments of tension, as there must be in any movie about men crawling fifty feet through a tiny tunnel of dirt. No power on earth could get me to do it.As it turns out, two men, Leo Genn and Anthony Steele, escape to the forest, thence to Lübeck, an ancient and distinctive northern city that gave us Günther Grass and Thomas Mann. Some location shooting was obviously done around the city's landmarks. The pace picks up. Narrow escapes up alleys and over fences. Evil forces are closing in on them but they finally make their way to a Danish freighter where they are welcomed aboard. Danish freighters can be fun. I accompanied two linguists aboard a freighter this size in Nova Scotia. The object was to see how the pronunciation of a sentence in French would be altered by a Danish accent. "Selon notre dernier rapport la besoin est très bon." I don't know about the business but the festivities were gay and we staggered off loaded on Akvavit. (I just threw that in for lagniappe.) Copenhagen, of course, was occupied by the Germans in World War II and conditions remained dicey for the pair. The first violent scene takes place in the boatyard of a nearby fishing village when Genn kills a German guard, an act that leaves him chagrined.The escape are close but Genn and Steele finally make it to Sweden, which, unlike neighboring Norway, remained neutral for reasons having to do with the transport of raw materials. Safe at last in the arms of the British embassy.The opening scenes, the tunnels and so forth, have now become familiar fare in these escape movies, but the twists and turns of their escape through Germany and Denmark are engaging enough. I admire the photography too, and the treatment of the enemy, who are rendered as human instead of as cartoon figures.

THE WOODEN HORSE is part of a cycle of British films produced during the Fifties, in which various struggles during the Second World War were replayed, as a way of reminding audiences to feel proud of their country's achievements at a time when Britain's position in the world was becoming less and less influential. The British Empire was crumbling, rationing was still in place, and while Britain still had a seat at the United Nations table, they had very little power to influence world affairs. In Jack Lee's film, the ingenuity of British POWs is celebrated; they not only have the ability to create something out of nothing, but they always seem able to outwit their German captors (whom they term "Goons"). The characters are penetratingly delineated, with Leo Genn's phlegmatic Pete leading the group of three escapees, contrasted with Anthony Steel's more emotional John Clinton. Nonetheless they make an effective pair, especially when they have to negotiate some difficult situations in the German town of Lubeck. David Tomlinson, normally associated with comic roles (as in THE CHILTERN HUNDREDS), has a rare chance to essay a straight role; this he accomplishes with aplomb, as a cheery officer with a unique capacity to make the best of difficult situations. What makes Lee's film most memorable is the fact that it was filmed on location, using German and Danish civilians in supporting roles; they speak both their native languages as well as English. This gives the film a sense of gritty realism, as well as reminding us about just how dangerous the escape plan, using the wooden horse, actually was. Tonally speaking, THE WOODEN HORSE is very matter-of-fact; director Lee is at pains to show that the entire escape was not about heroes, but was actually the British POW's bounden duty. This gives the film a documentary realism that ensures it stands up well today, over sixty years since it was originally released.