The Captive Heart

From Basil Dearden, the renowned director of Dead of Night, Pool of London, The Mind Benders, Woman of Straw, Masquerade and The Man Who Haunted Himself, comes this Ealing classic about a captain of the Czechoslovak Army (Michael Redgrave, The Night My Number Came Up) who assumes the identity of a dead British officer during World War II. When he is caught, he joins thousands of British prisoners of war, captured during the Fall of France, on a march to a German prison camp. Although he keeps up a correspondence with the dead officer’s estranged wife to avoid exposure, his fellow prisoners begin to suspect him of being a spy. Only his conspicuous courage during an escape attempt vindicates the secretive Czech. The Captive Heart features a wonderful cast of great British character actors including Mervyn Johns (The Horse’s Mouth), Jack Warner (It Always Rains on Sunday) and Gordon Jackson (The Ipcress File), with stunning black-and-white cinematography by the great Douglas Slocombe (Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Lion in Winter, Raiders of the Lost Ark).