THEY RAID BY NIGHT
US, 1942, 73 minutes, Black-and-white.
Lyle Talbot, June Duprez, Victor Varconi, George N. Neise, Charlie Rogers, Paul Baratoff. Sven Hugo Borg.
Directed by Spencer Gordon Bennett.
This is a little-known war propaganda film of 1942. It is a particularly British and Norwegian story. Those interested in the background of the Nazi invasion of Norway and the resistance by the King, it is worth looking up The King’s Decision, 2017, directed by Erik Poppe. Other Norwegian war adventures include Errol Flynn in Norway in Edge of Darkness, and the post--war epic, The Heroes of Telemark.
This is a more focused film, reflecting the situation in 1940 – 1941, and the uncertainties of the outcome of the war but with the hostility towards Hitler and the Nazi invasions and occupations.
The film shows a Nazi execution of a patriot and the imprisonment of the mastermind General of the resistance. The British authorities decide to send a rescue mission, commandos, with a Canadian, played by Lyle Talbot, in charge with a local Norwegian, George N. Neisse, and a cheeky British sergeant, Charlie Rogers.
Despite the title, their parachuting takes place in broad daylight and they are immediately spotted, having to defend themselves in shooting the Germans. They go into a town, meet a blind resistance man who shelters them. Also in broad daylight, the former fiancee of the young local recognises him and reports him to the German commander with whom she is in a relationship. Authorities come to arrest them, they overpower them and take their car to rescue the prisoner.
Interestingly, the local German commander, while a committed Nazi, is more intelligent than most in such films, is generally working out what the commando group is likely to do, using a local yes man for his jobs, finally arresting the local, torturing him – and, the screenplay actually does have “we have ways of making you talk�. When the young man seeks his former girlfriend for a doctor, she immediately reports him.
The group pretend to be Germans and rescue the general from the prison camp he breaks his shoulder which slows down the progress. The young man, tortured, gives information about where the group would but the commander has sent the Englishman and the General on to another hut. Interestingly, there is an intelligent confrontation between the German and the commander, with a lie detector and the commander pushing his cigarette onto his hand to disturb the vibrations and so deceive the lie detector.
The British are worried, send in the fleet, the German commander working out where they would be, the confrontation and a shooting, setting a building alight as a bonfire signal and the rescue taking place – and some ironic remarks with the German commander, wounded, not promising that he would not escape from prison camp.
In view of what happened in Norway during the war, this is an interesting opportunity to see a Norwegian story.
