The One That Got Away (1957) on Netflix
Luftwaffe pilot Franz von Werra is captured in England in 1940. He tells his RAF interrogator he will be free again in six months.
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Trailer
Plot summary
Franz von Werra, whose fighter came down in Britain in 1940, is a Luftwaffe pilot and a celebrity at home for a dogfight over Britain that his captors believe never happened. At the London Cage, the military intelligence reception center, he is questioned and wagers that he will be free within six months. At Trent Park House, where the officers' conversations are recorded, he stays cautious. Sent to the prisoner-of-war camp at Grizedale Hall, he believes a German officer's duty is to get home and report what he has learned, and the harder the British make escape, the more determined he becomes.
Cast
- Harry Lockartas German Prisoner
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The One That Got Away (1957)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Kenneth More was approached to play Franz von Werra but turned it down, having just played a real-life POW in Reach for the Sky (1956). John Davis, head of the Rank Organisation, wanted Dirk Bogarde, but director Roy Ward Baker insisted on a German, and Rank's overseas distribution manager suggested Hardy Krüger.
- Franz von Werra, the Luftwaffe pilot whose exploits the film chronicles, was shot down over Britain in 1940 and became the only Axis prisoner of war to escape and make it home during the war.
SPOILER
Von Werra traveled home by way of Peru, Bolivia, Brazil and Spain, reaching Berlin on 18 April 1941; on 25 October that year his plane was seen to dive into the sea while on patrol, and no trace of him was found.- The film took over £3 million in West Germany, and its success there prompted producer Julian Wintle to form his own production company and make two films with German protagonists, Bachelor of Hearts (1958, also starring Krüger) and Tiger Bay (1959).
