Strong and Moving!

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

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.

a pitifully budgeted - b&w - British film - all the scenes seem shot in as small a set as possible - the few outdoor shots are a reliefaltho based on a true story of a joint British and OSS effort to mislead the Germans regarding the invasion of europe by the allies - the plan was clever - but the movie's plot feels contrived and unconvincingthe actors are better than the script - Jeff Hunter acquits himself well - altho this confirms he was never a potent screen presence - but neither were co-stars Nigel Patrick or swiss actress Annemarie Düringer or anyone else

Major Nigel Patrick, a British intelligence officer, is head of a small team of operatives in 1944 London who are trying to let slip the fake information that the Allied landings will be in Holland rather than Normandy.Jeffrey Hunter is a CIA agent, when it was still called the OSS, who is second in command. Patrick is stern and secretive and wound up like a spring. Hunter is easier going and gets involved with a Dutch woman, Annemarie Düringer. The two of them stumble into two German spies who are ransacking the office. Düringer shoots one of them and later breaks down, telling Hunter that she can't get the man's face out of her mind. "Just forget about it," he advises her.That's the kind of advice that's commonly given to the guilt ridden, both in the movies and in real life. "Don't think about it." "Put it out of your mind." I've often wondered how you DO that. Can you WILL your mind not to think of something? If so, what agent is doing the willing? Is there another mind BEHIND the mind we know about and are conscious of? Where are Descartes and Freud when we need them? I usually discount all British films without scores written by Malcolm Arnold or Maurice Jarre and conducted by Muir Mathieson. John Wooldridge's score for "Count Five and Die" provides a good example of the reasons why. When Jeffrey Hunter creeps through a darkened office, pistol in hand, we hear the tingling of tremolo violins. No surprises anywhere. Zzzz.In the course of the film, Düringer begins to look an awful lot like a German mole. We find this out rather earlier than Hunter does, when, just before she shoots the office burglar, the burglar tells her in German that he's working for "Mulder" and asks her to help him, presumably by finishing him off before he can be interrogated. It's a nice touch because it alerts the audience that there's a bigwig named Mulder behind all this counter-espionage. But who is Mulder? I mean, besides David Duchovny? He turns out to be one of those typical, unsmiling, ruthless dentists. I kept waiting for him to say, "Turn this way a little." Anyway, the uncovering of Durginger's real identity puts the team in a bind. Having already seduced her -- or the other way round -- Hunter must now go on dating her, even though Patrick has brought him up to date. How would you like to try making love to someone you know to be an enemy? Of course, this isn't the place for an essay on marriage. Hunter finds he can't do it. He's cold towards her. And Duringer shows what a proper actress can do. Hunter abruptly leaves her apartment after rejecting her advances. Alone, she mopes, her expression sad. Then her eyes widen as she realizes that Hunter and the rest of the team must be on to her. It's a slight physical change but it alters her entire expression.Otherwise it's a rather routine movie, hampered probably by a low budget. There are no period airplanes. The wardrobe and grooming are 1960-ish. The director has shot a few street scenes with innocent spectators standing in the background and staring at the camera. The Morse code is gibberish. There is a neat twist at the end, and one or two striking noir-like shots. The dialog is functional but has an occasional twinkle.

Supposedly based on a true story, this British film starring Jeffrey Hunter is very good, considering what was in all probability low budget. The plot concerns feeding incorrect information to the Axis about where D-Day would actually take place. When a young woman comes from Holland to join the intelligence team, she needs to be checked out carefully, as she is suspected of being a spy.Hunter and Nigel Patrick do a very good job and Hunter's boyishness is especially appealing. He had a nice, relaxed way about him before the cameras and like so many other incredibly handsome men, undoubtedly had a tough time convincing anyone that he could really act. But he really could. Sad that he died so young. Anne-Marie Duringer is the love interest under suspicion.It may be a little slow at times, but also quite interesting.