The One That Got Away

The One That Got Away (1957) is a British war drama you can watch online on iFILM, built around the documented case of Oberleutnant Franz von Werra — the only German prisoner of war caught in Britain to make it back to Germany during the conflict.

Von Werra was shot down over England in 1940. He escaped. Recaptured, transferred to a tighter camp. Escaped again. Moved to Canada. Got out there too, crossed into still-neutral America, and made his way home through neutral territory. Hardy Krüger plays him as a man who treated captivity as a logistical problem rather than a condition. Each escape is methodical; each recapture a delay, not a defeat.

Director Roy Ward Baker keeps the film procedural rather than heroic — it takes no position on whether von Werra was admirable, only that he was relentless. He was killed in October 1941, engine failure over the sea off the Dutch coast. Stream The One That Got Away (1957) online on iFILM.