StunnaKrypto Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Edwin The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

ianlouisiana A group of British P.O.W.s march through the woods on the German/Polish border singing gaily;as they sit down to rest,one of them,the badly - injured Sergeant Major Coward(Mr D.Bogarde),slips away from the guards and makes his escape through what is obviously the English countryside till he finds what is equally obviously an English farmhouse where he persuades the owner to let him rest in the barn.A convoy of injured Wermacht soldiers suddenly arrive and are dumped on the barn floor around him.He slips a blanket over himself and is taken with the other casualties to a hospital where he is given apparently at random an Iron Cross.Such fun. Sgt Major Coward continues to play jolly japes on the surprisingly tolerant Germans,and all this schoolboy stuff gets a bit tedious after an hour or so. The Brits burst into song at the least opportunity,and a lot of comic - book Nazis sneer rather rudely at their prisoners.And that's about it,really. So what makes this extremely average British war film worth 7 out of 10?Well,it's very subjective,of course,but Mr Bogarde,to me,was never better than when freed from his "upper - class Englishman"leash,and the necessity for incessant sighs of boredom/angst/feyness. Here as Charles Coward he is playing a Londoner(but not your archetypal jolly cockney)shrewd,calculating and irrepressible. He plays him brilliantly;not condescending,never allowing us to doubt for a moment(at least not while the film is playing)that this is a believable character who finds himself in some unbelievable situations. And dear old James Hayter is endearingly bad as a Camp Commandant who is clearly more the former than the latter. Along with "Very Important Person","The Password is courage" is right at the top of the light - hearted P.O.W. movie pantheon,and Mr Bogarde's admirers are strongly recommended to watch it.

JohnHowardReid Although this prisoner-of-war picture packs all the familiar ingredients into its plot, somehow it fails to come across even a fraction as effectively as thirty or forty similar movies I could name. Of course, the cast presents a considerable stumbling block. Dirk Bogarde is the only actor who seems to be pulling his weight. Everyone else turns in such lightweight portrayals, you'd think they were vacationing in a holiday camp. Even the Germans are an unconvincing lot. On the plus side, the movie does present some spectacular moments for railroad buffs, and the photography is suitably bleak. All told, I suppose the movie would offer reasonable entertainment for those who haven't seen "The Wooden Horse", "The Colditz Story", "The Great Escape", etc. But for those who are well acquainted with these far more powerful accounts, "Password" is a limp offering indeed.

Enoch Sneed Although this film is supposedly based on the exploits of a real-life PoW, many of the events seem absurd. Apparently German prison-camp guards (played by British actors viz Cherman aggzents) were blundering fools who let their prisoners run rings around them whenever they tried to impose any discipline or punishment. Scenes such as the prisoners having their wrists bound, releasing themselves immediately and forming another queue to keep the guards at work all day rather fly in the face of legendary German efficiency, while the destruction of a lumber mill where petrol has been stored in open fire buckets descends into farce - didn't the guards have a sense of smell? The whole camp must have stunk of petrol fumes.Charley Coward seems able to move about the German camp system at will: organising an escape in one camp, being transferred to another to gather vital information, then sent back just in time to use this information in the escape.The film was all-too-obviously filmed in England with our old steam locomotives being wrecked for the cameras before going to be broken up. There is no attempt to make them look German, and most display their British Rail numbers and shed plates. Locations such as streets and railway stations are also very English.The one aspect of the film which does distinguish it from other PoW stories is a sense of physical realism. These prisoners look cold, ill-fed and ill-clothed after years of captivity. The tunnel scenes also have a feeling of claustrophobia which other movies ('The Great Escape' included) don't match.A film with points of interest but not enough to make it great.

malo_1 I've just finished watching this film for the first time in many years and found it disappointing. The only thing that kept me viewing is the fact that my father was incarcerated in Stalag 8b (the setting for the majority of the film). Although this film is historically correct for the most part the detail is very inaccurate, the acting almost amateur and the depiction of conditions makes the Stalag look like a holiday camp, which it certainly was not.As with the previous comment I can only assume that this is an attempt to make light of a situation that meant many years of hardship and misery for many brave men. Unless you have a personal interest in the film subject I wouldn't bother watching.