American airmen Captain Hank Wilson (Robert Redford) and Sgt. Lucky Finder (Mike Connors) are shot down over Germany during WW2 and captured by a fumbling, weak drug store clerk called Wilhelm Frick (Alec Guinness) who doesn’t have the heart to turn them in to the Nazis.
So Frick creates his own jail and keeps them in the cellar of his house. He feeds them well, washes their clothes, lets them listen to music, and allows regular baths and shaves if they want. At Christmastime, he even brings them a little Christmas tree.
The problem is, he is a lonely man and grows to enjoy having the prisoners in his life for company. So much that when the war ends, he doesn’t tell them and keeps them locked up in his house.
For six years he regales them with stories of how Germany is winning the war and when they finally escape and see the “new” booming German prosperity it isn’t hard for them to believe their side has lost.
Unfortunately, the ending seems very hurried, disconnected and forced.
Wilhelm Frick
Alec Guinness Sgt. Lucky Finder
Mike Connors Captain Hank Wilson
Robert Redford Edeltraud
Anita Höfer Lissie
Mady Rahl Herr Neusel
Paul Dahlke Quartermaster Master Sergeant
Frank Wolff Wanda
Elisabeth von Molo
