OPERATION AMSTERDAM

UK, 1959, 104 minutes, Black and white.
Peter Finch, Eva Bartok, Tony Britton, Alexander Knox.
Directed by Michael Mc Carthy.

Operation Amsterdam is one of the many war films and memoirs made during the 1950s. By 1959, the particular kind of black and white rather more stark presentations of war action were coming to an end. The 1960s saw the bigger, more colourful big-budget films like The Great Escape, The Battle of the Bulge, The Counterfeit Traitor and many more.

Peter Finch and Alexander Knox are to Dutch merchants of diamonds. The pressure is to get the diamonds out of Holland before the German invasion. The focus is on the merchants, the difficulties, the Jewish merchants in Holland and Amsterdam and the beginnings of persecution of the Jews. The merchants have a great deal of difficulty, have to team up with the Dutch Resistance, have to rely on the guidance of Anna (Eva Bartok) and the possibility that there is a traitor amongst them.

This is familiar material – but is made in a suspenseful and interesting and enjoyable way.

The director was Michael Mc Carthy whose last film this was. He had a short career during the 1950s as a writer-director. With this bigger-budget film he might have had a much longer and more successful career had he lived.

1. Expectations from the title? The original novel was 'Adventure in Diamonds'. A better title? The war film, audience expectations of it, the quality of this film within its conventions?

2. The atmosphere of authenticity, the background of 1940 Britain and its attitude towards the war, Germany and its mobilization and invasion of Holland, Holland being invaded and the beginnings of resistance, Churchill etc.? The commentary indications? that these events happened, but were not recorded? How authentic did the mission seem?

3. The use of black and white photography, the Dutch locations, the vast number of people especially in the port sequences, the recreating of the experience of Amsterdam on the eve of its invasion? The atmosphere of war? The importance of the use of popular Amsterdam music? Its being incorporated even into the plot?

4. How strong was the sense of mission, the sense of suspense? The importance of the structure being just the one day? The genuine nature of the mission?

5. How did the film show in detail the atmosphere of May, 1940, the Channel, the Dutch ports and people escaping, the spies, the deserted Amsterdam and the fighting in the streets, the need for diamonds getting out of Holland, sabotaging the oil installations?

6. How real did the mission seem: the hurry, the fact that Holland was so close, the details of the briefing and the clarity of the mission, the use of the destroyer and the trip across, the arrival?

7. How convincing were the three men: their backgrounds, the motives, the risks that they were taking, Dutch patriotism and English loyalty? How convincing were these motivations?

8. The portrait of chaos in Holland, ships, the planes strafing the refugees, the Dutch trying to cope, the decisions?

9. The melodramatics of Anna's car and her becoming the great help for the mission? The character of Anna, her background and her job? Her ingenuity in helping, her contacts with the Dutch War Office? Her helping then throughout the day?

10. The central focus on the jewellers, the father, his explanation of the problem to the men with the industrial diamonds, the background to their decisions, the risks, especially for Jews and concentration camps? Their motivation in sending the diamonds to England? The melodramatics of blowing the vault to get all the diamonds?

11. The details of Anna helping them, during the day, interrogations, the car chase, the shooting and the death of the lieutenant? The boy whose parents had been killed?

12. The melodramatics of the major, his delivering the explosives, his being followed, getting the explosives men to help with the vault, the final blowing up of the oil supplies?

13. The importance of Anna's decision to stay?

14. The atmosphere of hope, the sense of achievement, the atmosphere of patriotism? Why was this film made in the late fifties? Its impact then? Now?