At the isolated McKenzie prisoner of War (POW) camp in northern Scotland, the German prisoners – under the command of Kapitän zur See Willi Schlüter (Helmut Griem), a formidable Kriegsmarine U-boat commander – keep challenging the authority of the camp’s by-the-book British commanding officer, Major Perry (Ian Hendry) and staging riots on an almost daily basis.
When German officers are handcuffed as a reprisal for reports of British officers being shackled in German POW camps, the prisoners retaliate.
They refuse to appear at roll call, then ambush the British guards when they attempt to force the prisoners out of their barracks.
The Germans are also digging a tunnel – a slow, laborious job – but it goes on undiscovered, a few inches every day.
British Intelligence sends in Captain Jack Connor (Brian Keith), a rough and ready Irishman who brings his own tough approach – and disregard for regulations – to the problems that Major Perry has been unable to tackle. He uses firehoses to quell the riots and is not above trying to break certain rules of the Geneva Convention to achieve his ends.
However, Connor’s plan to allow 28 prisoners to escape and lead the army to the German U-Boat sent to collect them doesn’t work out as he would have liked.
Meanwhile, Schluetter is faced with a virtual mutiny within the German prisoner population and tackles it brutally and deliberately.
He is not averse to murdering his fellow officers to ensure the success of his plans.
The film is based on the 1968 novel The Bowmanville Break by Sidney Shelley, which detailed the real-life revolt and partly successful escape of German POWs from the Bowmanville Prison Camp 30 (located in Ontario, Canada) in September 1943.
Although in actuality no German POW imprisoned in Britain during World War II ever succeeded in escaping, the movie changed the location from Canada to Scotland.
Despite being set in Scotland, The McKenzie Break was filmed on location in Ireland. Nearly three hundred regular Irish troops worked as crowd extras.
Captain Jack Connor
Brian Keith Kapitän zur See Willi Schluetter
Helmut Griem Major Perry
Ian Hendry General Kerr
Jack Watson Sgt. Maj. Cox
Patrick O’Connell Lt. Neuchl
Horst Janson Lt. Wolff
Alexander Allerson Captain Kranz
John Abineri Lt. Hall
Constantine Gregory Lt. Schmidt
Tom Kempinski Lt. Hochbauer
Eric Allan A.T.S. Sgt. Bell
Caroline Mortimer Cpl. Jean Watt
Mary Larkin Lt. Berger
Gregg Palmer Ingenieur-Offizier Unger
Michael Sheard Lt. Fullgrabe
Ingo Mogendorf
Director
Lamont Johnson
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When German officers are handcuffed as a reprisal for reports of British officers being shackled in German POW camps, the prisoners retaliate.
Meanwhile, Schluetter is faced with a virtual mutiny within the German prisoner population and tackles it brutally and deliberately.
