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Danger Within

Danger Within (U.S. title: Breakout) is a 1959 British war film directed by Don Chaffey and starring Richard Todd and Bernard Lee. It set in a prisoner of war camp in Northern Italy during the summer of 1943. A combination of POW escape drama and whodunit, the movie is based upon the 1952 novel Death in Captivity by Michael Gilbert, who had been a prisoner of war held by the Italians at PG 49 in Fontanellato.[2]

Danger Within
Directed byDon Chaffey
Written byBryan Forbes
Frank Harvey
Based onDeath in Captivity
by Michael Gilbert
Produced byColin Lesslie
StarringRichard Todd
Bernard Lee
Michael Wilding
Richard Attenborough
CinematographyArthur Grant
Edited byJohn Trumper
Music byFrancis Chagrin
Production
company
Colin Lesslie Productions
Distributed byBritish Lion Films
Release date
  • 17 February 1959 (1959-02-17) (London)
Running time
101 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget£178,111[1]

Plot

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A well-planned escape attempt, which seemed guaranteed to work, ends in disaster. Within seconds of leaving the POW camp, the would-be escapee, cleverly disguised as sadistic Capitano Benucci, is caught and killed by the real Capitano Benucci. This incident is witnessed by the other prisoners, who notice that Benucci seemed to be waiting for the escapee to arrive before shooting him dead in cold blood.

Afterwards, the escape committee, led by Lieutenant Colonel David Baird, is convinced that there is an informer within their ranks. The prime suspect is a Greek officer, Lieutenant Coutoules. However, when Coutoules is found dead in an escape tunnel, suspicions that there is a traitor living among the POWs die down. In an effort to explain away his death to the Italian captors, Coutoules' body is placed in an abandoned escape tunnel within the camp and the Italians are informed he was suffocated by a roof fall.

Based on fingerprint evidence, Benucci charges Captain Roger Byfold with the murder of Coutoules. It is obvious to the POWs that, although Byfold is completely innocent, Benucci will ensure he is found guilty and executed. The escape committee develops a desperate plan to get Byfold and two other officers out of the camp before Byfold goes on trial. The three POWs scale the camp fence with a ladder constructed from two rugby posts. However, Benucci and his men are concealed just outside the fence with a machine gun mounted on the back of a truck, and the three escapees are promptly mowed down by a hail of bullets. This is the second time Benucci has deliberately killed escaping POWs in cold blood, even though it would have been easy to capture them alive.

The escape committee realises that Benucci knew when and where the three POWs planned to escape and had positioned himself in the best place to ambush them. The only logical explanation is that there really is a traitor among the POWs, who has betrayed them by passing information to Benucci. That also means that Benucci must already know about another tunnel they are working on, intended for a mass escape of POWs. The prisoners realise that Benucci could easily intervene to prevent the next escape attempt from taking place, if he wanted to. They assume that Benucci prefers to let preparations continue so the informer can tell him the date and time of the escape, allowing Benucci to wait at the other end of the tunnel to machine-gun as many POWs as he can.

The race is on to find the informer, and for the rest of the inmates to escape en masse before the camp is handed over to the Nazis, following the Italian Armistice. The escape plan, devised by Lieutenant Colonel Huxley, is for the prisoners to make their escape during the day, under the cover of a production of Hamlet in the theatre hut by a group of POWs led by Captain Rupert Callender. They assume that Benucci would never expect the POWs to attempt an escape in broad daylight.

Cast

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Filming locations

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Locations for the film were Chobham Common, Surrey and Shepperton Studios.

See also

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  • Stalag 17 (similar war film involving an informer inside an American POW camp)

Notes

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The film was retitled Breakout for the US market.

References

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  1. ^ Chapman, J. (2022). The Money Behind the Screen: A History of British Film Finance, 1945-1985. Edinburgh University Press p 359
  2. ^ Fowler, Roy (19 August 1988). "Interview Andy Worker". British Entertainment History Project.
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