The Colditz Story Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

The Colditz Story Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 5, 2020

Note: This version of this film is available as part of Their Finest Hour: 5 British WWII Classics.

Their Finest Hour aggregates a quintet of really interesting British films about England’s experience in World War II, though kind of interestingly (and perhaps meaningfully), only one of the films in the set was actually produced during the war, with four others coming along from the mid- to the late fifties. Perhaps understandably, the film that came out in 1942, Went the Day Well?, is unabashedly fictional and perhaps tilted toward propaganda, while all four of the films that came out in the fifties ( The Colditz Story, The Dam Busters, Dunkirk and Ice Cold in Alex), offer stories ostensibly based at least part in fact. These are all fascinating films in their own ways, and several of them contain hugely enjoyable performances by a coterie of notables like John Mills, Michael Redgrave, and Richard Attenborough. At least a couple of them may well offer stories generally unknown "on this side of the pond", even to those who have a good general knowledge of the ins and outs of World War II.

In a way, it’s maybe just a little ironic that The Colditz Story isn’t somehow based on the writing of Paul Brickhill, the Australian writer who was also a pilot and prisoner of war. Brickhill famously penned the source novel that ultimately became The Great Escape, which bears certain undeniable similarities to The Colditz Story, though The Colditz Story hit cinema houses nearly a decade before the John Sturges film (though several years after Brickhill's source novel hit bookstores). But Brickhill also wrote the source book which gave birth to The Dam Busters , also included in Their Finest Hour: 5 British WWII Classics. That said, The Colditz Story is properly based on the memoirs Pat Reid, a real life POW in Germany’s Colditz Castle during World War II, who himself waited almost a decade after the hostilities ended to finally write about his ordeal at Colditz, waiting (as is disclosed in the excellent documentary included on this release as a supplemental feature) to see if any of his compatriots wanted to write about it first, as any decent gentleman might.

Considering how infamous this particular prisoner of war camp has become, not just due to this film but also to a seventies era television series called Colditz (note that the link points to a British DVD release), as well as Colditz: Escape of the Birdmen and Colditz , this same documentary makes the perhaps surprising point that there really wasn’t very wide knowledge about the top secret prisoner of war camp housed in a monolithic castle in Colditz, which was considered so “inescapable” that it was the “go to” prison for supposed “bad boy” Allied officers (as one British officer interviewed in the documentary included on this disc states overtly is what a German officer called him) who had had the temerity to escape from other prisoner of war camps, until Reid's book became an international best seller.

And in fact it’s the “Reid” connection that is at least part of what arguably keeps The Colditz Story from reaching the heights (and/or depths, considering tunnels included in both escape stories) of The Great Escape . Reid, as portrayed by John Mills in the film, is simply too gentlemanly in that traditional British way, even at times with his German captors, to reach the “swaggering” status of Steve McQueen’s American character in the Sturges film. In fact, there’s a series of “stiff upper lip” moments scattered throughout The Colditz Story involving several of the English prisoners that would seem to be the antithesis of the simmering rage McQueen displays throughout the Sturges film. That said, the large ensemble cast, which also includes good work from several notables like Lionel Jeffries, Theodore Bikel, Bryan Forbes, Ian Carmichael and Eric Portman, brings real emotion and energy to their performances.

The fact that Colditz Castle does in fact turn out to be largely "inescapable" tends to make some of the British efforts seem haphazard and ineffective, though that probably only adds to the rush of adrenaline that is offered during the climax, when at least a couple of characters do in fact effect their own "great escape".

The Colditz Story Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Note: I'm beginning each of the individual reviews of the films in this set with some shared information to get some of the basics out of the way, and then I'll move on to comments about each individual film in the paragraph below. While Film Movement (on the back cover of this release) touts these as "newly restored" and "available on Blu-ray for the first time", I point interested readers to these reviews by my colleague Dr. Svet Atanasov of pre-existing releases of four of the films for the UK market: Went the Day Well? Blu-ray review, The Colditz Story Blu-ray review, The Dam Busters Blu-ray review and Ice Cold in Alex Blu-ray review. Svet's reviews are a good resource not just for Svet's thoughts on plots and technical presentations, but also to compare screenshots and supplemental features on each disc (which are sometimes but not always shared). I'll also mention that there is evidently a UK Blu-ray release of Dunkirk from Studio Canal that doesn't have an "official" review yet, but which does have a user review.

The Colditz Story is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Film Movement Classics, an imprint of Film Movement, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.66:1. As with all of the films in this set, the insert booklet only offers a generic "new digital restoration" for this presentation, but this comes with a StudioCanal masthead, so I'm assuming it's sourced from the same master as the release that Svet reviewed. This is by and large a very pleasing looking transfer, one which maintains really good detail levels on elements like the roughhewn walls of the castle or even some of the fabrics on the sweaters that Reid wears. The film looked just slightly dark to me at times, but overall gray scale is quite appealingly modulated and contrast is solid. There are some minimal signs of age related wear and tear that have made it through whatever restoration gauntlet was undertaken, but nothing of any major consequence.

The Colditz Story Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Colditz Story features an expressive if at times just slightly boxy sounding LPCM 2.0 mono track. Francis Chagrin's occasionally bombastic score sounds fine, if again slightly boxy in the upper registers especially, but dialogue is presented cleanly and clearly throughout the presentation, and occasional sound effects are reasonably reverberant. For those unfamiliar with Chagrin's name, he's a rather fascinating character, and there's a really excellent recounting of some of his life and accomplishments by David Hucknale on one of the supplements included in the region free UK Powerhouse Films Indicator Series release of The Snorkel, one of the Hammer films aggregated in Hammer Volume Two: Criminal Intent.

The Colditz Story Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Colditz Revealed (1080p; 53:34) is a fantastically engaging documentary about the actual prisoner of war camp, with some really interesting interviews with veterans (and former prisoners), as well as some snippets from the film.


• Restoration Comparison (1080p; 3:04) offers "before" and "after" views, either via split screen or via wipes.

Additionally, the insert booklet that comes with Their Finest Hour: 5 British WWII Classics includes an essay about all five films in the set. As with many Film Movement releases, there's the About Film Movement option on the Main Menu which provides some text and a trailer.

The Colditz Story Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Colditz Story isn't quite in the same league as The Great Escape , or other POW classics like Stalag 17, but if accepted on its own perhaps arguably somewhat slighter merits, it's often very enjoyable, with a couple of standout sequences. The Brits may simply be too (outwardly) polite about the whole situation for things to ever really build to a dramatic catharsis, but the film's climax is quite exciting. Technical merits are generally solid, and the documentary included very interesting. Recommended.