Private Potter

Private Potter is a 1962 British drama film directed by Caspar Wrede and starring Tom Courtenay, Mogens Wieth, Ronald Fraser and James Maxwell.

Plot
During the Cyprus Emergency (1955-1959), the eponymous Private Potter is a soldier who claims that the reason he cried out leading to the death of a comrade was that he saw a vision of God. There is then a debate over whether he should be court-martialled.

Cast

 * Tom Courtenay as Private Potter
 * Mogens Wieth as Yannis
 * Ronald Fraser as Doctor
 * James Maxwell as Lieutenant Colonel Harry Gunyon
 * Ralph Michael as Padre
 * Brewster Mason as Brigadier
 * Eric Thompson as Captain John Knowles
 * John Graham as Major Sims
 * Frank Finlay as Captain Patterson
 * Harry Landis as Lance Corporal Lamb
 * Michael Coles as Private Robertson
 * Jeremy Geidt as Major Reid
 * Fulton Mackay as Soldier

Production
The screenplay was written by Ronald Harwood for a television play that was broadcast on ITV in 1961 featuring some of the same main cast, including Tom Courtenay, and Caspar Wrede again as director. Finnish-born director Wrede first spotted Courtenay while he was still at RADA and the leading role of the fragile young soldier who wilts under pressure was his first film appearance.