Your best friend knows your wife's darkest secret—and he's trapped in a POW camp with you.
While waiting out World War I in a German POW camp, Captain Fred Allison discovers that his oldest and dearest friend Digby has also been captured and put into the same camp with him. Fred longs for news of his wife, Monica, but Digby speaks little of her. Digby knows a secret about Monica, a secret he must keep from his friend, and it wears at his conscience so much that he attempts a reckless escape.
Acting
Howard's trembling restraint vs. Fairbanks' smoldering guilt.
Direction
Del Ruth crams psychological warfare into 69 tight minutes.
Director
Roy Del Ruth
Leslie Howard
Captain Fred Allison
Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
Lieutenant Fred Digby
Paul Lukas
Colonel Carl Ehrlich
Margaret Lindsay
Monica Allison
Robert Barrat
The Commandant
Arthur Hohl
Cocky
John Bleifer
Strogin
J. Carrol Naish
Cpl. Guarand
Philip Faversham
Lieutenant Haversham
Frank Reicher
Herr Hauptman
Joyce Coad
Elsa
Bert Sprotte
Sergeant Major
Harry Cording
First Orderly
Halliwell Hobbes
British Major General
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Made during Hollywood's brief pre-code window, this got away with adultery, suicide implications, and moral ambiguity the Hays Code would soon ban.
Leslie Howard and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. became lifelong friends on set—ironic given their characters' tortured bond.
US
