This rousing wartime adventure is one of director Mark Robson’s best films, balancing The Great Escape’s notion of mass escape with the characterization of Sinatra as a man wrestling with the moral burden of wartime leadership. It contrasts the British notion of dutiful military honour with American pragmatism. Thus, Howard would seek to escape the camp, saying that if even one gets out it is a victory. Sinatra laments the loss of life in such attempts and it is clear that he takes his responsibility for other lives humanely rather than patriotically: his organization of the mass escape is rooted more in necessity than in the disastrous egotistical folly that motivates many of the British (as it would Richard Attenborough’s character in The Great Escape). The American puts survival before any outmoded honour. As such, the film essays the clash between pride and practicality in terms of the dynamics of mass escape, siding with American pragmatism as enabling true heroism, based on the responsibility for individual lives. However, this responsibility demands hard decisions and there is the subtle, developing sense that Sinatra will be in the end held accountable for some of these moral choices. Perhaps he is even aware of such an impending reckoning and so ponders every decision, from the fate of a commandant to the choice of whether or not to shoot an innocent woman in the back in order to protect their escape attempt.
All decisions have consequences on a personal level as destiny (and narrative) actively conspires to keep these men’s fates linked to that of the train. Where Howard is ready to sacrifice the lives of many to make a statement, Sinatra is less prepared for such a sacrifice and is motivated by a genuine desire to preserve lives. His heroic actions in turn lead to a developing respect from the same troops that initially considered him almost a traitor. In this way, pragmatic humanism results in acts of consequence that nevertheless are tinged with human tragedy and the wastefulness of war. But as Sinatra brings out the best in others, he ironically finds the worst in his own potentiality. Although this question of moral accountability is a provocative subtext, it is never in opposition to the exciting wartime spectacle and the film’s second half in particular is a tense adventure with some audience-pleasing humour amidst the rather solemn undertones. Indeed, it is also intriguing for the way in which the train itself is another character in the movie, embodying the prisoners’ collective fate. It is thus not merely a vehicle of transportation and the film fixates on it as a densely loaded metaphor for the pursuit of freedom as enabled by American heroism in World War Two. Thankfully, this patriotic idea of American humanist pride is never too heavy-handed and indeed has a costly price at the end. read more