Danger Within

Alternative title: Breakout
Synopsis: Feature film adapted from Michael Gilbett’s 1952 novel ‘Death in Captivity’, based on his experiences as a POW in Italy during the Second World War. In the book the play being produced is Rudolf Brasier’s ‘The Barretts of Wimpole Street’. A group of British prisoners in an Italian prisoner-of-war camp are planning to escape by tunnel, but realise that one of their number is a traitor. It is decided that the escape will take place under cover of a performance of Hamlet, with Callender (Dennis Price) in the title role. The play is seen in rehearsal (I v 161-8, IV ii 4-6) and during the escape. The actors continue their performance in front of a steadily diminishing audience with much use of the noise machine to simulate audience applause. There is no plot parallel beyond the inclusion of the gravedigger’s scene though at the climax the traitor is killed in error by being shot through a curtain, paralleling the death of Polonius, stabbed through a curtain while spying on Hamlet.
Language: English
Country: Great Britain
Medium: Film
Technical information: Black-and-white / Sound
Year of release: 1959
Subjects: Drama
Keywords: Italy; Shakespeare, William (1564-1616); World War II; Rehearsals