*SOME SPOILERS* WWII spy epic that has to do with bamboozling the Germans into thinking that the big cross-channel assault on Hitler's Fortress Europe would come on the dikes and waterways of Holland not, like it eventually did, the beaches of Normandy in France. Trying to get the German high command into thinking that Operation Overlord would in fact take place some 300 miles north the US intelligence service, OSS, has a number of agents slated to be dropped into Nazi-occupied France. This was an attempt to cause all kinds of confusion among the German authorities there, military & civilian, by getting them to have the bulk of the German Army & Luftwaffe as far away from Northern France and the Normandy beaches as possible.
Training a number of agents for this dangerous mission the head of the group, #077, Bob Sharkey, James Cagney, is told by his boss the head of US Secret Intelligence Charles Gibson, Walter Able, that one of those under his command is a German agent. This cryptic Nazi agent is trying to find out just when and where the allied invasion of Europe will take place. Finding out that the German agent is non-other then clean cut All-American Bill O'Connell, Richard Conte, aka Kuncel Sharkey has him teamed up with OSS agents Jeff Litmore and Suzanne Be Beaumont, Jeff Lassiter & Annabella, in an effort to get Kuncel into thinking that Holland, not Normandy, is the target of the long awaited allied invasion.
There's also a side story in Group #077 mission involving this guy La Roche, Donald Randolph, a Frenchman who's the brains behind the Nazi V-2 project that will have the Germans plaster all of Southern England with V-2 rockets as soon as the invasion of Europe starts. Were never told just what this La Roach is really all about since he disappears almost as soon has he's introduced to the audience; this after a big buildup that made you think that he's the biggest thing that the movie has going for it.
Kuncel gets to work even before he and his fellow US agents set foot on French soil by sabotaging Lassiter's parachute killing him and them going back to his German Gestapo comrades and helping them hunt down and kill, like Suzanne, his fellow agents whom he knew and worked closely with for over a year. The word comes back to both Sharkey & Gibson that Kuncel, not your typical Hollywood Nazi blockhead, is not only on to what their doing but has just about caused the mission that has so much riding on it, that they planned to carry out in occupied Farnce, to be aborted. Sarkey, feeling responsible for letting Kuncel outfox him, himself volunteers to be dropped into France to not only jump-start the what now looks like a lost cause of a secret mission but to get Kuncel for exposing it to the Gestapo and having both Lassiter & Suzanne killed.
Better then you would have expected war/espionage movie with the Germans not being made to look like a bunch of bumbling bozos but smart cunning and very formative adversaries that made it far more interesting and scary. Many wartime Hollywood blood & guts films that came out at that time where you wondered just how could a bunch of buffoons like the Nazis have gotten as far as they did with the caliber of leadership, in both civilian & military, that they had.
Starky despite his best efforts ends up getting captured by the Germans and is brought to La Harve Gestapo headquarters where he's tortured and beaten mercilessly by the secret police who's boss just happens to be his former secret agent and friend Kuncel. It was fitting that Sharkey would almost break Kuncel's neck and later while being interrogated by his goons have the pleasure to see Kuncle's Gestapo headquarters blasted to pieces, together with himself, by allied bombers that he and his fellow secret agents guided to their targets.
Training a number of agents for this dangerous mission the head of the group, #077, Bob Sharkey, James Cagney, is told by his boss the head of US Secret Intelligence Charles Gibson, Walter Able, that one of those under his command is a German agent. This cryptic Nazi agent is trying to find out just when and where the allied invasion of Europe will take place. Finding out that the German agent is non-other then clean cut All-American Bill O'Connell, Richard Conte, aka Kuncel Sharkey has him teamed up with OSS agents Jeff Litmore and Suzanne Be Beaumont, Jeff Lassiter & Annabella, in an effort to get Kuncel into thinking that Holland, not Normandy, is the target of the long awaited allied invasion.
There's also a side story in Group #077 mission involving this guy La Roche, Donald Randolph, a Frenchman who's the brains behind the Nazi V-2 project that will have the Germans plaster all of Southern England with V-2 rockets as soon as the invasion of Europe starts. Were never told just what this La Roach is really all about since he disappears almost as soon has he's introduced to the audience; this after a big buildup that made you think that he's the biggest thing that the movie has going for it.
Kuncel gets to work even before he and his fellow US agents set foot on French soil by sabotaging Lassiter's parachute killing him and them going back to his German Gestapo comrades and helping them hunt down and kill, like Suzanne, his fellow agents whom he knew and worked closely with for over a year. The word comes back to both Sharkey & Gibson that Kuncel, not your typical Hollywood Nazi blockhead, is not only on to what their doing but has just about caused the mission that has so much riding on it, that they planned to carry out in occupied Farnce, to be aborted. Sarkey, feeling responsible for letting Kuncel outfox him, himself volunteers to be dropped into France to not only jump-start the what now looks like a lost cause of a secret mission but to get Kuncel for exposing it to the Gestapo and having both Lassiter & Suzanne killed.
Better then you would have expected war/espionage movie with the Germans not being made to look like a bunch of bumbling bozos but smart cunning and very formative adversaries that made it far more interesting and scary. Many wartime Hollywood blood & guts films that came out at that time where you wondered just how could a bunch of buffoons like the Nazis have gotten as far as they did with the caliber of leadership, in both civilian & military, that they had.
Starky despite his best efforts ends up getting captured by the Germans and is brought to La Harve Gestapo headquarters where he's tortured and beaten mercilessly by the secret police who's boss just happens to be his former secret agent and friend Kuncel. It was fitting that Sharkey would almost break Kuncel's neck and later while being interrogated by his goons have the pleasure to see Kuncle's Gestapo headquarters blasted to pieces, together with himself, by allied bombers that he and his fellow secret agents guided to their targets.