First time I saw it and didn't think much of it now
I first saw this in the mid 1970s as a child . I was from the last generation of British children who had a common interest in the second world war . I used to like buying war comics like Battle and Commando and used to love watching all those B & W war movies , but I was disappointed with THE McKENZIE BREAK first time I saw it probably because the plot mainly involved British guards going into a prison compound , getting beaten back by the German prisoners - Repeat every 15 minutes
After seeing it again recently I do realise that my memories are somewhat simplistic but that doesn't mean the film has suddenly improved in my eyes . If I have to be brutally honest then I have to say it has diminished further . Since I first saw this movie I have seen many similar movies like BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI , THE GREAT ESCAPE etc films that are either more dramatic or more entertaining than this one , that's probably the problem with TMB it's rather serious in its tone without being compellingly dramatic and the one subplot that I found interesting during its recent broadcast of one of the prisoners being a suspected homosexual by his Nazi peers is rather unexplored
There's a couple of other things that stuck out in my mind about this movie and not in a good way . One thing was when a character mentions that a couple of prisoners escaped and made it into the Irish free State . As every schoolboy from my generation knows not one single German prisoner held in allied captivity escaped back to Germany . I know it's not implicitly stated that these two escapees made it back to Germany but it's unlikely they'd be interned in Ireland . Secondly I couldn't help noticing a large German contingent were wearing Wermacht uniforms . Where would they have been captured and why go to all the trouble of keeping them in a Scottish POW camp ? Wouldn't they have been kept in the same region they were captured ?
A very average film that will only appeal to people interested in men standing on roofs singing Nazi marching songs
I first saw this in the mid 1970s as a child . I was from the last generation of British children who had a common interest in the second world war . I used to like buying war comics like Battle and Commando and used to love watching all those B & W war movies , but I was disappointed with THE McKENZIE BREAK first time I saw it probably because the plot mainly involved British guards going into a prison compound , getting beaten back by the German prisoners - Repeat every 15 minutes
After seeing it again recently I do realise that my memories are somewhat simplistic but that doesn't mean the film has suddenly improved in my eyes . If I have to be brutally honest then I have to say it has diminished further . Since I first saw this movie I have seen many similar movies like BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI , THE GREAT ESCAPE etc films that are either more dramatic or more entertaining than this one , that's probably the problem with TMB it's rather serious in its tone without being compellingly dramatic and the one subplot that I found interesting during its recent broadcast of one of the prisoners being a suspected homosexual by his Nazi peers is rather unexplored
There's a couple of other things that stuck out in my mind about this movie and not in a good way . One thing was when a character mentions that a couple of prisoners escaped and made it into the Irish free State . As every schoolboy from my generation knows not one single German prisoner held in allied captivity escaped back to Germany . I know it's not implicitly stated that these two escapees made it back to Germany but it's unlikely they'd be interned in Ireland . Secondly I couldn't help noticing a large German contingent were wearing Wermacht uniforms . Where would they have been captured and why go to all the trouble of keeping them in a Scottish POW camp ? Wouldn't they have been kept in the same region they were captured ?
A very average film that will only appeal to people interested in men standing on roofs singing Nazi marching songs