Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

it is the rare 'crazy' movie that actually has something to say.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

A film about how a jobbing actor, Meyrick Edward Clifton James, with seemingly all the qualifications for a role has to convince hundreds in a way that is more terrifying than any theatrical role ever required of an actor, and which has huge import for the war effort in World War II. Some aspects of the true story were in fact interesting and left out of the film; it was actor and Lieutenant-Colonel David Niven who was the real life Army Film Unit contact that James would be sent to. Operation Copperhead, would see James assigned to Montgomery's staff in order that he may learn his speech and his mannerisms. James had to quit drinking and smoking and, having lost the middle finger of his right hand during the First World War, a prosthetic one was made for him. While it is arguable the screenplay came up slightly short on impact in these and some other ways, the end of the film is a good climax to the film but is fictional. Also, the film has a reduced tension in the way the third act plays out because the audience is told at the beginning that the real person is playing the part of M.E. Clfton James. All in, this is a great little film and it tells a terrific story about disinformation. It has excitement and there's a little humour injected to make the story move along at a nice pace.

At the fag-end of the 50's, a generation of long-demobbed soldiers were still trying to cut it in uniform, in a spate of cheap black-and-white war films. More convincing than most was the unknown star of this true story, a minor Australian actor who had been rejected by the entertainment services, and was reluctantly pen-pushing in the pay office, when someone noticed that he was a dead ringer for Montgomery.This was in the run-up to D-Day, when the allies were desperate to draw enemy attention away from Normandy as the obvious invasion zone. Might a Monty-lookalike be able to fool German intelligence by touring North Africa, as though preparing for a big Mediterranean landing instead?The actor in question, M.E. Clifton James, is secretly employed as a driver on Monty's staff, in order to get close enough to study his speech and mannerisms. But he doubts his own ability to replicate the character and personality of the great man, not least because 'Jimmy' is a chain-smoking alcoholic. Eventually, jolly optimist John Mills persuades him to go through with it, and suddenly he's stepping off a plane in Gibraltar, under scrutiny from enemy agents (one of them brilliantly sinister, as played by Marius Goring), as well as certain officers who remember Monty from before the war.Defying many attempts on his life, Jimmy overcomes his desperate shyness, and learns to take massed salutes from whole armies. Then all too soon, D-Day has come and gone, his one brief star-performance is over, and it's back to the humble pay office. Except... they felt it necessary to bolt-on a false ending, about which we can reveal nothing, except that it never happened.As for the real-life outcome, we have to face the disappointing fact that it was only part of a much larger decoy operation, which did throw the enemy into some confusion, but reports of Jimmy's own effort reaching Hitler's desk seem to be wishful thinking. The film displays some recognisable weaknesses of those low-budget productions. The over-long opening section is taken up with John Mills' various flirtations, whose only consequence for the story is that his humourless boss (Cecil Parker) decides to replace their seductive secretary with the ugly-beautiful Barbara Hicks, in some ways more arresting. And the way Mills and Parker chat freely in public about top secret plans will grate on the ear of anyone who has worked in intelligence. No war-film of its day was complete without the stuffed-shirt spoilsport Allan Cuthbertson, who duly pops-up here, as does the perennial plug-ugly sergeant Anthony Sagar. Jimmy's one meeting with Monty is awkwardly dodged; we simply cut away from him on the steps of the general's caravan, although split-screen techniques had long since enabled an actor to shake hands with his own double (try the 1937 'Prisoner of Zenda').None of this really detracts from the joy of the film, principally the deeply-believable performance of a professional actor, acting himself acting Monty. Sympathy and charm shine through this modest man, who seems to have been shabbily treated after the war, when he was reduced to the dole. Hopefully this popular film brought a little benison for the five short years that remained to him.

Apparently using doubles as decoys to fool the enemy is nothing new. It takes place even now and during World War 2 there were several Winston Churchill lookalikes in good employment.I first saw this film as a kid and thought it was fantastically entertaining. The film takes place a few months before the D-Day landings are due to take place. The British government wants to have a campaign of mis-information and have rumours that the landings might take place at a location other than NormandyClifton James was an actor who had an uncanny resemblance to General Montgomery and is enticed by John Mills to impersonate the man himself in order to dupe the Germans.The film is a straightforward adaptation of James real life story although more tension and humour has been added as well as a kidnapping storyline at the latter part of the movie which did not actually occur. Also in real life James was fond of a drink and smoke unlike Monty.It is a shame that Clifton James did not get more acting roles after the war although this film does mark his contribution to the war effort.

With some considerable dramatic license the story of one of the best intelligence operations of World War II is told in I Was Monty's Double. The film is based on the book by actor F.E. Clifton James who plays himself and Bernard Law Montgomery as he did for a fateful few weeks in World War II.John Mills and Cecil Parker two officers from British Intelligence become James's handlers in the terminology we would use today. Mills while attending a service variety show sees James do a walk on as Field Marshal Montgomery and is struck by the audience reaction to him. The germ of an idea comes to Mills to have the actor play Montgomery for the widest audience possible, to give him a grand tour of the various fronts of the war. This in order to divert Nazi attention from the United Kingdom where the cross channel invasion is being prepared and Montgomery very much a part of the planning. In fact you can see some of his real role there in the TV mini-series Ike and in The Longest Day.Of course James carried the masquerade off beautifully. My favorite scene is James at a press conference in Cairo with allied war correspondents where he's at first hesitant with this cynical bunch, but grows in confidence and wins them over with a speech that you might have seen the real Bernard Law Montgomery deliver during his lifetime.Two others who give noteworthy performances in the film are Michael Hordern as the Governor General of Gibraltar and Marius Goring who is a German agent whom Mills, Parker and James deliberately give misinformation to in order to confirm how effective the plan is working.The whole business in the end is pure fiction which I won't reveal, but that doesn't detract from making this a first rate account of an amazing adventure. One even Stephen Spielberg would envy.