Watch Count Five and Die For Free

hyped garbage

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It takes some time before the action gets going in this film, but when it starts it never ceases to accelerate in intrigue, suspension and drama. Annemarie Duringer is prominetly leading the film by her very suave and susceptible character, most amiable but with an abyss of hidden agenda. Nigel Patrick is perfect as usual, almost too perfect, while Jeffrey Hunter is a bit of an outsider in this game, can't really handle his business nor himself, and he has to pay for it. It's very dark and almost claustrophobic in the insistency on scenes in labyrinthine insides, and only rarely you go out into dark streets för some following or spying or bullets. The title "Count Five and Die" gives away the whole drama - as a spy sent out on a mission you are given a cyanide capsule in case you get caught, and when you swallow it you count to five and die. It's very easy but not really and actually rather complicated, as you don't always reach that capsule in time...It reminds very much of Anthony Asquith's "Orders to Kill" a few years earlier, it's the same kind of problems of innocence and the wrong people getting caught up in the wrong game, and above all the doom of destiny is there hanging around more people than anyone bargained for.

This movie starts well, with a trip round the offices of a film distribution company that is the spies' "cover", and the shabby bedroom opposite with two chaps filming anyone who comes or goes, with a rifle in case they really have to shoot anybody. Nigel Patrick and Jeffrey Hunter are good actors. I love b/w movies made and set during WWII and just after, but a kind of rot set in. Slightly relaxed censorship meant that Patrick and Hunter constantly make smirking references to the female characters - there are almost wolf whistles on the sound track. I gather that Hunter and Duringer's later affair is no-holds-barred. But this put me off watching any further. I was also turned off by the inability of the designers to even attempt 40s style. I suppose that by the late 50s wartime fashions seemed utterly frumpy, and no actress would have the long hair necessary for the elaborate styles.

***SPOILERS*** It's spring 1944 with the allies planning to stage a massive cross-channel assault on Fortress Europe any day now. Fearing a major German counter response it's decided to trick the Germans into thinking that the main assault will be directed towards Holland not as planned in Normandy France. This job is to be given to the British Intelligence unit headed by Major Howard, Nigel Patrick, and his American second in command Capt. Bill Ranson, Jeffery Hunter. Knowing that there's a major German spy network in London monitoring all allied troop movements it's important to make them think, by slight of hand or army divisions, that the attack will take place hundreds of miles from where its planned. That's to keep German infantry and panzer units from reinforcing the understaffed German divisions in Normandy making the allied invasion that much more effective.Working with member of the outlawed, by the Germans, Dutch Underground both Major Howard and Capt. Ranson get the help of pretty dutch woman spy Rolande Hertog,Annemire Duringer, as the units' radio operator that the young and hot for action Capt. Ranson falls in love with. It later becomes evident when she guns down in cold blood a wounded German spy, to keep him from talking, and before icing him is heard talking in German not Dutch with him that Capt. Rasnson realized that she in fact is a German spy herself! With Hertog soon realizing that the invasion of Holland is just a trick on the allies part and that they, the German spies, are being given false information into believing it she tries to contact them and give them the right info. While this is going on the Germans kidnap one of the Dutch spies Dr. Mulder's, David Kossoff, 10 year old son Willie as insurance if the invasion of Holland doesn't materialize and murder him in retaliation for making them look like a bunch of moronic buffoons in them thinking that it would!***SPOILERS**** With Capt. Ranson finally realizing that Hertog, his former lover, is about to get the news back to Germany about the trick the allies are planning to pull on them he plans to do the only thing left for him to convince her that she's wrong! And with that act of supreme courage and sacrifice, as well as a bullet in the gut, gets her to give the Germans, who were ready to blow the allies expeditionary force out of the English Channel, the news that Capt. Ranson told her before the two, with Ranson surviving, ended up getting shot!

I don't believe that this film is based on real events, as there is no evidence of it. However, it is made to make us think that's the case. British filmmakers were always so good with this type of movie.Regardless, it's a well-made, believable tale, with good acting, writing, and direction.My only complaint is that the ending leaves us wondering what happened to Jeffrey Hunter's character. Does he survive being shot? Does he get an award for his actions? Inquiring minds need to know. Endings like this one are so frustrating.Would love to see a widescreen DVD release of this film one day. It deserves a release.