Yes, there are a lot of plot holes in this thrilling World War II espionage drama, but if you can get past that, it becomes quite exciting. James Garner gives an excellent performance as a pilot who is put into a coma and brought out looking six years older, told that the war is over, and begins to reveal secrets that most men would have forgotten after a month let alone remember years later. But it's really only a matter of months, and everything around him is phony right down to the american soldiers and officers who are really Nazis.
Standing by him is his alleged fiance, nurse Eva Marie Saint, filling in amnesic bits and pieces of his past that don't exist. Rod Taylor is the nazi posing as an American who along with alleged German traitor Werner Peters fills him in on falsehoods of how the war ended. This alternate ending of the war will be fascinating to history buffs, although I found the ease of their false conclusion a bit too contrived, as if the military and the German people had just had enough and decided to take out the leaders.
But as storytelling goes, it's quite superbly done and at times nail biting especially when Garner begins to catch on. The performances are excellent, certain elements quite sly, and the direction of George Seaton brilliant because of the realization that this has many directions in which it could go. The scene where all of the extras who are Germans are told that if they boost their American accent what the consequences will be is quite sinister. Definitely one of the most original of post wartime set dramas, and I doubt it could be improved on.
Standing by him is his alleged fiance, nurse Eva Marie Saint, filling in amnesic bits and pieces of his past that don't exist. Rod Taylor is the nazi posing as an American who along with alleged German traitor Werner Peters fills him in on falsehoods of how the war ended. This alternate ending of the war will be fascinating to history buffs, although I found the ease of their false conclusion a bit too contrived, as if the military and the German people had just had enough and decided to take out the leaders.
But as storytelling goes, it's quite superbly done and at times nail biting especially when Garner begins to catch on. The performances are excellent, certain elements quite sly, and the direction of George Seaton brilliant because of the realization that this has many directions in which it could go. The scene where all of the extras who are Germans are told that if they boost their American accent what the consequences will be is quite sinister. Definitely one of the most original of post wartime set dramas, and I doubt it could be improved on.