ALBERT R.N. is a 1953 British WWII POW story, included on a Blu-ray disc along with THE SEA SHALL NOT HAVE THEM that has been recently released by the Cohen Media Group. Both films were directed by Lewis Gilbert, both are in black & white, and both pictures share many of the same cast & crew.
ALBERT R.N. takes place in a 1944 POW camp in Germany for naval officers. Most of the men have been in the camp for years, and they have seen several escape attempts fail. One of the prisoners, an artist named Geoff (Anthony Steel), constructs a life-like dummy. He suggests to the POW's senior officer (Jack Warner) that the dummy be used during head counts to take the place of men who have escaped. The ruse succeeds, but it is later learned that the man who ran away was killed. Geoff starts to feel guilty about building the dummy in the first place, while other prisoners debate how and when Albert should be used again.
ALBERT R.N. (the R.N. stands for Royal Navy) is a restrained POW tale that doesn't have any major action sequences or any elaborate escape attempts involving dozens of men. Still, Lewis Gilbert manages to get a lot of drama and suspense out of what is admittedly a rather talkative story (it was based on a stage play). The focus of ALBERT R.N. is on the interplay of the characters and on the situation that the ensemble of actors is in. There isn't one character that particularly stands out among the rest, and that includes even "Albert" himself.
All of the actors give fine, realistic performances. The POWs in the camp appear to be treated decently for the most part--the camp's commandant is a German naval officer, played by Frederick Valk, and he is portrayed as efficient and fair (most British WWII movies did not feature stereotypical over-the-top Nazis). Anton Diffring is an SS officer under Valk's command, and while he is certainly the main threat to the POWs, he's not shown as outlandish or unbelievable. Diffring plays the SS officer as a determined, cold-blooded, calculating fellow, and out of the many, many German officers the actor played during his film career, this performance ranks very highly.
Among the rest of the cast are William Sylvester as an American flyer (from Texas!) who is desperate to get out of the camp, Robert Beatty (who would, along with Sylvester, appear in 2001; A SPACE ODYSSEY), and Eddie Byrne. James Bond fans will recognize Walter Gotell as a German guard. Just like THE SEA SHALL NOT HAVE THEM, ALBERT R.N. has a number of connections to Hammer Films. The associate producer was Anthony Nelson-Keys, the art director was Bernard Robinson, and the cinematographer was Jack Asher. Asher is known for his work on the Hammer color Gothics, but he also did well in black & white, as in this picture.
By the way, ALBERT R.N. is based on a true story. A dummy really was constructed in an actual POW camp in WWII, and it was used to facilitate an escape attempt....and the POW who built the original dummy went on to build the dummy used in the film!
ALBERT R.N. is presented in a 1.37:1 aspect ratio, and it looks much better than THE SEA SHALL NOT HAVE THEM--the image is very crisp. Unfortunately, the only extra is a new trailer for the film created by Cohen. Audio commentaries would have been most welcome for both the films on this disc.
Like THE SEA SHALL NOT HAVE THEM, ALBERT R.N. focuses more on human drama instead of explosions or large-scale battle sequences. It's a very good film, and it has the benefit of an ironic, and very fitting, climax.
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