How to Escape From Nazis
TCM, beginning at 8 p.m.
Tonight’s lineup of films all take place during World War II and feature various high-stakes tales of escaping from Nazis. First up is the Oscar-nominated historical drama Von Ryan’s Express
(1965), which stars Frank Sinatra as an American POW who leads a group of prisoners on a dangerous escape past German soldiers in Italy, followed by another Oscar-nominated war drama, The Great Escape (1963) – based on a true story – which follows a group of Allied “escape artists” who are put in an escape-proof prisoner of war camp as they attempt to get out of occupied Europe. Following that is Man Hunt
(1941), about a British hunter who takes aim at Hitler in 1939, then is captured and beaten and left for dead, but manages to get back to London, where he is hunted by German soldiers. Next up, TCM’s featured September actor Dirk Bogarde is a British sergeant who escapes a POW camp and is mistakenly awarded with the Iron Cross by the Nazis in The Password Is Courage (1962). Finally, to close out the night is The Cross of Lorraine (1943), which follows a group of captured French soldiers who plot to escape their POW camp.