This movie has movie greats Christopher Plummer and Gregory Peck.  They play opposites in a moral and ethical struggle set in Italy 1943-1944. Plummer the evil Gestapo police chief is attempting to round up Jews, POWs, and refugees.  Peck, playing an Irish activist priest at the Vatican, works for the opposite goals.  The role of the Vatican’s neutrality is explored.

Although the movie is in the “made for TV” format (with annoying fade-in and fade-outs), the historically accurate movie has fine acting and on location cinematography. This is must see for Plummer or Peck fans.  But it gets high marks for suspense, ethical tightrope walking, and all around classy product (some violence).

This British miniseries covers the infamous Colditz (Castle) POW camp.  Colditz made The Great Escape Luft Stalag seem like an open camp. Unlike The Great Escape, Colditz  also covered the secret service that aided allied POWS in escape and evasion.  Like so many British series this is done with class and attention to detail.  There are subplots enough to keep things interesting.  And best of all, the Colditz story is based on historical fact—a fine narrative, both entertaining and informative

Here’s another “minor” actor with major appeal.  Maybe its his cool demeanor, or perhaps its his associations, but he holds the scene with great dignity and poise.  As a bonus John Leyton was a rising young singing sensation in Britain before slipping into films.  The Rolling Stones were an opening band for him.  But on with the films.  He is best known and found himself playing imprisoned British soldiers.  He scored at the first stop with The Great Escape where he played Willy the Tunnel King opposite Charles Bronson.  His next movie Guns at Batasi where his character Private Wilkes made love to Mia Farrow and deftly worked under Dicky Attenborough all while “imprisoned” in the Sargent’s Mess in an African nation gone apart.  The movie is as much a vast geopolitcal statement as it is a rank and order study of changing times.  The final movie John graced worth mentioning is von Ryan’s Express where his character Orde dutifully carried out orders as the prisoners ride the rails to freedom or death.  Here John played abreast Trevor Howard and Frank Sinatra.  Not bad for a kid from the islands.