BY LEE PFEIFFER
One of the most unfairly neglected WWII films of its era, director Lamont Johnson's 1970 escape thriller The McKenzie Break comes to Blu-ray through Kino Lorber. The movie is rather small in scale with most of the action confined to a POW camp for German prisoners located in Scotland (though the movie was actually shot in Ireland.) The establishing sequence succinctly makes the film's scenario abundantly clear. The British ostensibly run the camp but the real power is in the hands of the senior German naval officer, Schlueter (Helmut Griem), a 27 year-old true believer in the Nazi cause. In the first scene we observe the inability of the camp's British commandant, Major Perry (Ian Hendry) to stop a riot orchestrated by Schlueter in protest of plans to shackle twenty five German officers in retaliation to the same action recently done by Germans to British POWs. The British guards seem hapless and ill-equipped to handle the situation. This leads to the arrival of Capt. Jack Connor (Brian Keith), an unpopular maverick officer who has been sent by London to the camp to "advise" Major Perry about how to reinstate order over the POWs and blunt Schlueter's growing influence with them. Although Perry isy the senior officer, he can read the tea leaves and understands that Connor has virtually carte blanche to carry out his plans. Connor immediately meets with Schlueter and makes it clear there's a new sheriff in town, so to speak. The two men are outwardly cordial toward each other but only in the kind of superficial relationship that one sees between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. They both know they intend to get the better of the other man. In Schlueter's case this means successfully orchestrating a daring escape through a secret tunnel for a key group of naval officers. He has been ordered by Hitler himself to do this so that Germany's shrinking U-boat corps can get some extra manpower. Schlueter, who is handsome, witty and charismatic, is determined to carry out his orders at any cost and Connor discovers he is willing to kill any dissenters among his fellow prisoners. This includes a disgruntled Luftwaffe officer who resents Schlueter's tactics. He's mortally wounded in another riot orchestrated with the sole intent of leading to his demise. Connor confronts Schlueter about this war crime and the fact that he believes Schlueter previously murdered his superior officer in the camp because he refused to aggressively follow the plans for the escape. Connor tells Perry that he knows there is an escape tunnel. Perry argues that they should close it down immediately but Connor has a more daring plan. Knowing that the escapees would have to make their way to the coast and be rescued by a U-boat, he argues to allow the men to escape then follow them and nab the U-boat, too. Perry thinks the plan is too risky but Connor prevails and the group of German soldiers escapes. Unfortunately for Connor, things to do not go the way he anticipated and he discovers there is a good chance the men will make it back to Germany.
The McKenzie Break is an intelligent, well-written film based on a source novel by Sidney Shelley. There have been countless WWII movies set in prison camps but this one gets a refreshing twist by making the Germans the prisoners. Under the impressive direction of TV director Lamont Johnson (in his feature film debut), the Germans are not portrayed as dolts or stooges, nor the mustache-twirling villains they often were in films such as this. They are presented as loyal servicemen who are simply trying to do what any POW would want to do: get back to their native country. The character of Schlueter, however, is more controversial because he can excuse killing his own men in order to achieve the greater goal. Connor is also a flawed officer. Within hours of arriving at his new post, he's sleeping with a female orderly. He's also bull-headed and suffers from a superiority complex that makes him adverse to taking advice from Major Perry, who he considers to be an incompetent. The performances are excellent, though this is primarily a two-man story. Keith, long one of the most underrated leading men in Hollywood, gives a commanding performance. He's charming even while he's being insolent and his thick Irish brogue adds a feisty element to his character. Similarly, Schlueter is extremely well played by Helmut Griem, a fine actor with considerable screen presence. It takes a good deal of skill for a young actor not to be overpowered by Keith's sizable persona and Griem pulls off the feat admirably. The film builds in excitement as the escape plan goes into action, although not without some tragic and unforeseen consequences for the Germans. The final sequence is a race to nab the escapees by an increasingly desperate Connor, who now fears they will indeed get away on the U-boat. The final scenes are packed with suspense and extremely well-staged, as is the film's ironic conclusion. Highly recommended.
The Blu-ray from Kino Lorber does not include any extras except for the original trailer.
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