**_Escaping the Germans by train in Italy_** A captured American colonel (Frank Sinatra) takes command of the POWs at an Italian camp in 1943. He conflicts with the rigid Brit major (Trevor Howard) as the Allies soon land in Selerno. The opportunity eventually surfaces to take command of a train and possibly escape north. Sergio Fantoni plays an Italian captain who teams up with them. "Von Ryan’s Express" (1965) was based on the book by David Westheimer, who himself was a navigator in a B-24 shot down over Italy at the end of 1942 wherein he ended up a prisoner in Stalag Luft III. While...