This was also remade for the "color" Hitchcock reboot series in the 1980s. It's well made and well acted with a convincing and grim work- camp setting and exterior locations and a really solid script. The main character is a well balanced bit of crook and hero, one you still root for enough for the whole thing to work. It's mostly a three character piece of crook, old con and guard and all are well written and preformed to have enough depth to escape the cliché.
It's paced and feels more like a feature film like the best of the hour long Hitchcock's do. Effectively tracked with music from other episodes and contains many effective camera angles. It's nearly perfect but the ending is kind of spoiled by the director. He allows the camera to show and see too many things that the main character can't and this may spoil the powerful ending for regular fans of this type of fiction and show. The final couple of shots also are repeated perhaps due to fear of something not being clear to the audience.
I think this version is better than the remake however I remember the ending working better in that version. Hithcock introduces the show from an enormous wine vat while stomping grapes.