Lack of good storyline.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

A very popular film in the UK on release in 1950, this prisoner of war drama might be light on star power, but tells its story well. Based on a true story, it concerns the escape plan of three inmates from Germany's infamous Stalag 3 P.O.W. camp using the device, inspired by the story of the Trojan Horse, of using a pommel horse for exercise as the means to conceal the building of an escape tunnel close to the camp's perimeter fence.Very much told in a commendably naturalistic manner befitting the subject matter, it avoids unnecessarily heightening the action with overly contrived cliffhanger situations, not that there isn't dramatic tension as the plan is hatched and implemented as it follows two of the three men (Leo Genn and Anthony Steel) on the run as they seek the assistance of the French and Danish resistance to get to safety. For some reason the story of the third escapee, played by a young David Tomlinson, who unusually wants to make his freedom bid by travelling alone is ignored immediately after the three men make it under the fence.It's well known that this escape was made from the same camp as the better-known separate events which Hollywood later filmed to great success as "The Great Escape" and I was reminded of this with the scene of the French resistance leader's testing of the British officers' stories to check if they weren't German spies, which was reminiscent of the similar technique used by the Germans to discover the identity of Gordon Jackson's character in the later film.Shot in postwar Germany and Denmark to good effect and sterlingly acted by its lesser known mostly British cast, it just shows you don't need to have Steve McQueen tearing about on a motorbike to convincingly tell a war-time prison escape story.

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.

The Wooden Horse was one of the daring Prisoner of War escape films. It features the true story of Eric Williams and two others in their escape from Stalag-Lufft III in October of 1943. This was the same POW camp where the Great Escape took place as well and which also got turned into a more famous film.The connection with the more grander film is important as you watch this film you see the prisoners trying to obtain permission from the escape committee with their plans which also occurs in The Great Escape as well.In this film two British prisoners of war decide not to have the usual tunnel escape but build a wooden vaulting horse which could be placed near the wire fence thus reducing the distance they would have to tunnel from this starting point to escape.The first half of the movie is more exciting as they carry out their daring plan with one or two prisoners hiding inside the vault and then digging the tunnel.The second half of the film is once they have escaped they try to get to the safety of Sweden. Here David Tomlinson who plays one of the escapees disappears from the film as we concentrate on Leo Gen and Anthony Steel. This part of the film feels dull, long and oddly lacks tension especially compared to The Great Escape which made this part more thrilling.I always had childhood memories of The Wooden Horse and the escape part. Its nice to be reacquainted with the film again. There are some nice unstated performances, an early appearance by future Oscar winner Peter Finch and parts for some British film stalwarts such as Bryan Forbes.Its just a shame that the latter part of the film lets it down.

In 1943, a group of RAF Officers, including Eric Wiiliams, decide to escape from a POW camp using a Gymnastic Vaulting Horse in the courtyard. In 1950, it was decided to film his account, and it kick-started a peculiar British Film Genre- the Military Prison Camp story that reached its apogee in Danger Within (1959).The Wooden Horse is one of the quietest films I have ever watched. There are no great dramatic moments, but a steady storyline eventually builds to a climax that has more tension because the story doesn't give way for unlikely drama, jump cuts or jacked up (somethings about to happen!) music. It is utterly of its time and works beautifully.Leo Glenn, Anthony Steel and David Tomlinson lead a curiously low key cast of extras and (I suspect) non-actors. Without exception, all are constantly mono-tonal and quiet. They keep emotion out of their roles. As so many were, until recently, ex-service, I suspect they recreated their war time roles as 'Officers and Gentlemen'.This unemotional approach does not detract from any dramatic tension. On the contrary, unlike most Wartime Escape Films, the story doesn't end at the barbed wire: and that fact alone keeps me glued to the end.