The Mckenzie Break

Starring:Brian Keith, Helmut Griem, Ian Hendry, Jack Watson, Patrick O'Connell, Horst Janson, Alexander Allerson, John Abineri, Constantine Gregory, Tom Kempinski, Eric Allan, Caroline Mortimer, Mary Larkin, Gregg Palmer, Michael Sheard, Ingo Mogendorf, Franz Van Norde, Desmond Perry, Jim Mooney, Vernon Hayden
Director: Lamont Johnson
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

McKenzie is a remote, understaffed POW camp in Scotland, where an assortment of German fliers, U-boat men, and soldiers are being held prisoner. The restive POWs stage a well-orchestrated uprising in which they essentially take over the camp. When word of the prisoners' siege gets back to British military higher-ups, they assign rogue Irish officer Captain Connor (Brian Keith) to get to the bottom of things. The Germans have been receiving orders directly from Berlin that call for 28 of the submariners to escape and return to the Deutschland's U-boat fleet. The Germans are led by Schlütter (Helmut Griem), an intelligent, articulate graduate of the Hitler Youth; they have devised an elaborate tunnel and a plot to take them to the Scottish coast, where they will rendezvous with a U-boat to take them back to Germany. The hard-drinking Connor learns of the plan, and stakes his career on letting the Germans escape and tracking them down. Keith is excellent as Connor (though his Irish brogue comes and goes), locked into a three-way battle of wills with the determined Schlütter and the stuffy, by-the-book CO of the camp. The movie's pace and suspense swell as Connor's gambit plays out and the Germans make good their escape plans, all set against the breathtaking scenery of rural Scotland. With intelligent, believable characters and tough direction, this is a sorely neglected World War II POW drama that compares well with better-known films such as Stalag 17 and The Great Escape. --Jerry Renshaw

Description

Brian Keith leads an acclaimed international cast in this poignant and powerful WW II drama fraughtwith action, suspense and the haunting reality of war. Keith stars as Captain Jack Connor,a fast-talking, hard-drinking, tough-as-nails Irishman assigned to investigate an impending escape by a group of German POWs led by the charismatic Kapitan Schleutter (Helmut Griem). The camp commander (Ian Hendry) has been unable to contain the prisoners, but Connor's brash and unusual approach solves the problem...for a while. In a race against timeand with growing animosity from the commanderConnor surpasses even his own previous unorthodox methods when he devises a scheme so daring that it will either make him a hero or prove to be the most fatal mistake of his career.

Customer Reviews:

'The Mckenzie Break' [1970] DVD is dynamic and well paced..........2006-06-17

'The Mckenzie Break' [1970] DVD is dynamic and well paced, and has been digitally transferred in remarkably good condition. Another alternative film in the in the genre of 'The Mckenzie Break,' 'Stalag 17,' 'The Great Escape,' Hart's War,' `Andersonville,' `Empire of the Sun,' `Prisoners of the Sun,' `The Bridge on the River Kwai,' `King Rat,' etc., is 'The Good War' [2004] DVD. Although 'The Good War,' starring Robert Farrior, Roy Scheider & Luca Zingaretti, among others, and written and directed by Giorgio Serafini, pales in comparison, it offers another view of an Axis POW camp in the US [Texas]. Shot in Bulgaria and Utah, 'The Good War' likely will not win the hearts/minds of lovers of the genre; however, based on a true story, it provides an alternatively engaging, if not interesting, perspective that has been somewhat overlooked. Recommended for only the diehard fans of the POW genre and the curious WWII genre viewer.

Battle of wits in classic POW drama - recommended.......2006-05-10

Right from the start you know that THE McKENZIE BREAK will not be like any other POW movie. We see British troops guarding the camp for German POW's. And in the opening minutes the tension is firmly established with the British attempting to shackle 25 officers of the Reich in retaliation for a similar action by Germany - an effort the Germans refuse to cooperate with. It's a clever device and sets the tone perfectly for what director Lamont Johnson sought to do in not glamorizing war "as a game."
Variety described the movie as "a taut, classically crafted World War II POW escape drama," but in fact the movie, which is based on a book by Sidney Shelley, is unlike every other POW movie I can think of in one key respect. From earlier films such as THE COLDITZ STORY through to THE GREAT ESCAPE right up to HART'S WAR, POW drama's have centered on a likeable group of Allied prisoners attempting to escape.
Here the audience sympathies are reversed. The German prisoners are not particularly likeable, even going out of their way to kill one of their own, and in the closing minutes as the net closes around the fleeing escapees the audience hopes that the Allies will catch them in time. It has shades of the drama THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY, except in that movie the German is a likeable character and the audience sympathies do swing back and forward between him and his pursuers.
This movie is more focused on the battle of wits between Capt. Jack Connor (the always likeable Brian Keith in a role far removed from perhaps his most famous role in the original THE PARENT TRAP) and Kapitan Schleutter (Helmut Griem.)
After the camp commander (Ian Hendry) has been unable to contain the prisoners, the no-nonsense and brash Connor is brought in and becomes a race against time to prevent the mass escape of prisoners, who have a date with a U-boat off the Scottish coast.
Indeed this movie is as much about the battle between these two men as it is about the drama of escaping POW's. The climax may feature a torpedo boat and Allied plane facing off against a U-boat. But, it is the dramatic climax between Connor and Schleutter that brings the movie to a close.
So, perhaps it's not surprising that Variety also praised the movie as "intelligent" with "strong three dimensiona; portrayals." Nor should it be surprising that I find this as riveting and as exciting as any of the other POW movies that are featured in my DVD collection.
The DVD release includes a "collectible booklet" which is more akin to a flyer, being as it is just a page and a half of text. The full-frame trailer that accompanies the DVD is also of appalling quality with niches and scratches all over the dirty print that has washed out colors and an audio track that does not seem to fit with the visuals.
I recommend this movie for the discerning World War II movie fan.

Great Movie, but who wrote Amazon's plot synopsis??????.......2006-01-05

A very good and entertaining action movie, with a bit of a twist in that it is taken from a different point of view with German POWS in a British camp. Recommended.

Who though wrote the synopsis for Amazon?? The camp is in Scotland, not "Northern England". Even southern Scotland is north of "Northern England". Also what is a "U-Boat Commander Kreigsmarine Captain"? It's actually spelled Kriegsmarine and translates to "Navy" in English. So we have (with misspellings) a "U-Boat Commander Navy Captain". A bit redundant no?

Recommendations: to those interested in a good rainy Saturday entertainment, buy this DVD; to the person who wrote this synopsis I suggest you buy a map of Britain and a German to English Dictionary.

McKenzie Break.......2005-07-01

There's a riot going on in Scotland during the waning years of World War II. The German prisoners in an Allied POW camp are laying siege to the compound and the War Office is getting a little frustrated and more than a little worried. To investigate and quell the situation they decide to send the hard-living, hard-loving, rule-breaking Irish Captain Jack Connor to the scene.
Brian Keith plays Connor in this odd POW drama that more or less turns the genre on its head. The inmates, led by U-boat commander Kapitänleutnant Willi Schlüter (Helmut Griem), are clearly in charge of the situation (darn those Geneva Convention rules!) and the Brits are a whisker away from having a Major Situation on their hands.
Enter Jack Connor, a man not only with a plan but enough insight to perhaps do more for the war effort than bring order and discipline to an isolated prison camp. You see, this is a POW movie, so there are tunnels being dug and breaks being plotted. And there's a big, iron fish to land at the end of that break. If only....
I'm a big fan of Brian Keith and, having watched and loved the first season dvd-set of `Have Gun, Will Travel,' most episodes of which were directed by Lamont Johnson, I was pretty excited about THE MCKENZIE BREAK. Keith is fine in this - as is Griem as his major nemesis, I hasten to add - and Johnson ably handles the action. I wanted to love a movie that turns a genre inside-out, but I ended up only liking it. I thought it something a little more than improbable that the Allies would be so delicate about Geneva Convention rules that they would so lose control of a prison camp. That was the big improbability hurdle I had to overcome, although this movie is studded with them. Add to that a rather ambiguous and inconclusive ending and I can't help feeling disappointed. Considering the talent involved, this one should have soared. As it is, THE MCKENZIE BREAK is a solid, albeit unspectacular, movie.

A solid war movie with an unusual twist!.......2004-02-02

This is one of my favorite war movies, although it certainly never got the acclaim that many bigger-budget films have received. "The McKenzie Break" is the story of a remote British-run POW camp for German Kriegsmariners and Luftwaffe officers in Scotland. The Germans are of course planning an escape, led by the ruthless Captain Schlutter, (a U-Boat Captain determined to get his trained men "back into the war") competently played by Helmut Griem. Brian Keith plays the British intelligence officer given a special assignment to deal with the situation at Camp McKenzie.

Of course, the notion of German POWs plotting to escape an Allied POW camp puts a unique twist on the usual POW theme, and in my opinion it works well in this film. The storyline moves along briskly and holds the viewer's interest. Bravo performances by Brian Keith and Helmut Griem carry the movie, and I felt that the cinematography and the on-location filming gave the film an excellent aura of authenticity. All in all there is a great deal about this film to like.

Don't compare this one to "The Great Escape" or any other POW film, because it isn't like any of them. "The McKenzie Break" stands on its own, and in my opinion does so very well.

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