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They Raid by Night
The British Commandos send Bob Owen to Norway to prepare for a raid. His mission also includes freeing General Heden who is being held by the Nazis. His aides include Eric Falken and Harry. Inga, a Norwegian girl to whom Falken was once engaged but who has become the sweetheart of Oberst Von Ritter, betrays their hiding place.
Release : | 1942 |
Rating : | 4.4 |
Studio : | PRC, |
Crew : | Director, Screenplay, |
Cast : | Lyle Talbot June Duprez Victor Varconi George N. Neise Charley Rogers |
Genre : | Drama War |
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Just perfect...
Absolutely the worst movie.
In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.
The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
A couple of twists make it worth watching; The Quisling surprisingly - unpredictably - Gives his life for Norway, and not, so typical of Hollywood, when the situation is forced on him.and- As mentioned by truerock74 , the Nazi isn't predictable. He totally disses the fiancé after she turns on her former- It doesn't conform the 'evil to the core' Nazi's of most films.There's also good humor with what makes humor good: timing.True, sets are almost funny in their crudeness, there's scenes that totally shoulda been re-shot, I can't imagine what some of the accents are supposed to be, and everyone good gets shot in the arm.But it's likable as your grandfather's mutt.
Unlike 1943's "Edge of Darkness", a Warner Brothers war movie about how the residents of a Norwegian fishing village fought back against the Nazi's, "They Raid By Night" is the story of the Commandos, a small group of American and British military personnel, who posed as Nazis to get a Norwegian General out of a German prison camp. They present the Nazis as pretty dumb here, not recognizing the American or cockney dialects of the men in their own uniforms. While there are some interesting twists (particularly the use of a grenade as part of a suicide bombing), the film is overall pretty silly, even with its nice use of stock footage apparently of the Norwegian coastline. Of the cast, only leading hero Lyle Talbot and June Duprez (in a rather unnecessary role) have any name recognition. The Nazis are appropriately snarly, but altogether, the film feels rather rushed together and is ultimately unsatisfying.
This is a war movie which is about occupied area.The surface plot of three Allied men on a mission in the occupied area to rescue a general is a smokescreen for the real story.The real story comes with the clever writing, writing so clever that even today many people don't notice it, but very evident to those with writing experience.The real story is the people of the occupied area, and what they go through. The chief characters on the surface go through the usual cat and mouse game of espionage.Meanwhile, the civilian characters, notably three of them, a blind man, a beautiful woman, and a toady, show what life is like for them, and what their aspirations are. The entire film is really about them, but it is so cleverly written that it isn't seen by many people.It is well thought out and entertaining as well. It flows much better than about any movie you find today. Thumbs up.
What can I say. I started watching the movie with no expectations at all and were slightly disappointed at some parts, but actually amazed at some other parts.One of the biggest let downs was the post-production. Apart from taking a lot of photage used for either documentaries, news reals or who knows what else, the sound effects were really bad. You'll hear a second long sound of a propeller looping for a very long time, simply because they didn't have any other more realistic sound effect to make it sound like they're on the airport.Too many things happen to easily and that makes the film unrealistic. Don't get me wrong, it's not that the commandos would have an easy job (on the contrary, that part is good), but some other parts... Well, they just happen to stumble on everything at once, so the whole thing can happen within a time-frame of a single day (if not less). Judging by instructions given to one of the rescue party, the entire interrogation and escape and travel tot he meeting point lasted no more then three hours... Those were the downsides. Not to mention the clearly visible painted scenes in the background and people walking around the same rock every time they entered the forest.Still some other parts were really fresh and thrilling.Spoiler ahead!!! I really liked the way how commando captain Bob got out of the interrogation. The German officer offered him a smoke, which he naturally accepted. Upon being put to the lie detector, he answered to all given meeting locations with NO, but before the interrogator would ask for the right place, the captain burned himself with a cigarette, so the lie detector would show the answer given at that time a lie. For me, this was one of the highlights of the film and a very original idea. The lie detector has been done in many movies (although I think this is the oldest one I've seen using a lie detector), but there was always a person lying and trying to pass it off as the truth. This time it was the truth, but it was passed off as a lie, which in my opinion was just brilliant.Another part I really loved was the character of Inge. Her fiancé Erik was one of the people in the rescue party and they met. She betrayed them. There was no remorse, but for the first time I've heard somebody explaining how it was like for the people left behind! She explained they found out she helped Eric escape, she blamed Eric for the death of her father and her own imprisonment. Her character was the one that really turned the tables. This wasn't another "We're heroes, fighting for freedom, without the slightest speck of dirt upon us" movie, but there were also some realistic portraits of real people handling war time situations.Also the fact that Eric cracks under torture quite fast is a commendable scene. Most of the people fighting weren't great heroes, who could stand for inhumane tortures, but were ordinary men with a breaking point - and when that point was reached, they broke.End of spoilers! So the characters, although not developed enough, are still much deeper then in most war movies (even compared to most successful and big hit war movies), unfortunately all the other elements showed it was just a second rate production with very limited budget.It would be interesting to see a remake, after all, how many movies have you seen covering the Allied offensive against Norway (one of the pre-operations that made D-Day possible)?