Danger Within

[poliphilo]

Every so often one of the forgotten movies my mother watches on the Talking Pictures channel snags my attention. Yesterday it was Danger Within (1959)- a prison camp escape drama-cum-whodunnit with an ensemble cast headed by Richard Todd, Richard Attenborough, Bernard Lee and- best of all- Denis Price as the self-deluding actor chappie (with a pin-up of John Gielgud over his bunk) who indulges himself in the world's worst production of Hamlet while his audience escapes down the tunnel under his stage. Brian Forbes had a hand in writing the script- which is almost always an indication of quality- and Don Chaffey- best known for Jason and the Argonauts- is the director- suppling the kind of sweet little touches (like that pin-up of Gielgud)- that prove him to be something rather more than a journeyman. There's comedy, suspense, the odd shock- and finally the blissful release of watching the surviving cast disperse into the sunny Italian landscape.