After the Germans march into Prague Czechoslovakia, armor-plating inventor Dr. Axel Bomasch (James Harcourt) flees to England. His daughter Anna (Margaret Lockwood) escapes from arrest to join him but the Gestapo manages to kidnap them both and bring them back to Berlin. As war looms, the British Secret Service Agent Dickie Randall (Sir Rex Harrison) follows them disguised as a senior German Army officer. His job is the not unpleasant one of pretending to woo Anna to the German cause.
The humor in this film is dry and wry. If you are not paying close attention the jokes will go right by you!! Otherwise, the comedy is rich and rewarding in the style of Mel Brooks or Ernst Lubitch. There is also suspense, action and romance. These aspects are shot in an intriguing way. Solid performances and but no stand outs. There are a couple of very silly gentlemen at the end of the film? 3 1/2* (I liked this movie)
90 min, Thriller directed by Carol Reed and written by Gordon Wellesley, Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder with Margaret Lockwood, Rex Harrison, Paul Henreid, Basil Radford, Nauton Wayne, James Harcourt, Felix Aylmer, Wyndham Goldie, Roland Culver, Eliot Makeham, Raymond Huntley, Austin Trevor, Kenneth Kent.
Note: Imdb 7.2* out of 10* with 4629 reviews, Rotten Tomatoes 89% with 18 critic reviews 73% with 500+ audience scores, Slant Magazine 3 1/2* out of 5* Simon Abrams, Amazon 4.5* out of 5* with 162 reviews, Letterboxd 3.5* out of 5*, blurry.highdefdigest.com 4* out of 5* Matthew Hartman.
Special Note: This film is in black and white. The first scene is a fairly accurate depiction of the Berghof, Adolf Hitler’s mountainside residence near Berchtesgaden and Obersalzberg in Bavaria. The house was famous for its huge picture window that overlooked the mountain scenery and it was often used to impress visiting foreign VIPs. As noted in the opening caption, action in this movie takes place during the year before World War II. It begins with the German invasion of the remaining Czech territory on 3/15/39 and ends on the night of 9/3/39, the day the UK declared war on Germany. The banner on the city bus stating "BERLIN RAUCHT JUNO" means Berlin smokes Juno and this is an advertisement for a cigarette brand later distributed to German soldiers.
Mistakes: Ulrich Herzog requests "a report of the copy" instead of "a copy of the report," as he surely intended to say. Although the credits name Raymond Huntley’s character as Kampenfeldt, the dialogue and his office door at the German Admiralty show it as Kampfeldt. Rex Harrison's character makes a British-style military salute while disguised in a German army corps of engineer Major uniform.
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