The Captive Heart (1946)

User Rating:

7.4/10   

Director:

Basil Dearden

Writers:

Patrick Kirwan (story)
Angus MacPhail (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

29 April 1946 (UK)

Genre:

War | Drama

Tagline:

Would you forge love letters to save your life?

Plot:

In 1940, a concentration-camp escapee assumes the identity of a dead British officer, only to become a prisoner of war.

Plot Keywords:

Prisoner Of War | Ealing | Impersonation | Corporal | WWII

Cast

Michael Redgrave	...	Capt. Karel Hasek, alias Geoffrey Mitchell
Rachel Kempson	...	Celia Mitchell
Frederick Leister	...	Mr. Mowbray
Mervyn Johns	...	Pte. Don Evans
Rachel Thomas	...	Di Evans
Jack Warner	...	Cpl. Ted Horsfall
Gladys Henson	...	Flo Horsfall
James Harcourt	...	Doctor
Gordon Jackson	...	Lieut. David Lennox
Elliott Mason	...	Mrs. Lennox (as Elliot Mason)
Margot Fitzsimons	...	Elspeth McDougall
David Keir	...	Mr. McDougall
Derek Bond	...	Lieut. Stephen Harley
Jane Barrett	...	Caroline Harley
Meriel Forbes	...	Beryl Curtiss

Runtime:

104 min | USA:86 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English | German

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Canada:PG (Ontario) | UK:PG | USA:Approved (PCA #11953) | Finland:S

Filming Locations:

Aston Rowant Station, Aston Rowant, Oxfordshire, England, UK

Company:

Ealing Studios

Trivia:

Film debut of Larry Taylor.

Quotes:

Lt. Stephen Harley: [as Christmas of 1940 approaches] Last Christmas I had my first concert. It was where I met Caroline.
Capt. Karel Hasek, alias Geoffrey Mitchell: Last Christmas I was in Dachau Concentration Camp. Christmas Eve a new batch of prisoners came in. One of them brought me news of my family. They'd been caught giving food to a Polish Jew. They were taken out and shot. My father, my mother, all of them.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Forever Ealing (2002) (TV)

We all have to help each other....

The prison camp is, in many ways, a metaphor for wartime Britain and its postwar hopes and aspirations. 'All sorts and conditions of men' are herded together in the camp, and despite the underlying tension, the boredom, and the self doubts, they must try and get along with each other. Indeed, it goes far deeper than that - they must try and look out for each other and protect each other.

And so they encourage the blind lad in his efforts to learn brail and come to terms with his blindness. A young 'tearaway' (a pre-war thief)comes to realise that even he has something to contribute. As the others try and think up a way of protecting the identity of a Czech hiding amongst them, he confesses that he knows how to open a safe, and can break into the orderly office and destroy the incriminating evidence.

There are little touches of humanity in terrible situations. The order is issued to manacle the prisoners as a reprisal for some Allied slight (this actually happened), and the elderly German reservist guard tries to indicate to the blind prisoner that he is only 'obeying orders' and doesn't want to do it. The invalid wife of a prisoner is told, back in England, that it is too risky to have her husbands baby, but she sacrifices herself in the hope that he will have a child to come home too. The blind lad tries to put off his girlfriend because he doesn't want to be a burden to her.

Some people find the main plot line a little contrived, but it is fascinating to see two strangers fall in love through a pretence.

And so wartime Britain entered the postwar world with all its hopes and fears. Sadly, with no visible common enemy to unite them, many of these hopes of a common caring humanity were not to be realised.