George Montgomery is an American pilot who flies bombers for the RAF. While on a bombing mission over Germany his plane is downed. One of his crew bails out and is shot up by Nazi pilot Martin Kosleck while hanging in his parachute. Montgomery crashes and is captured by the Germans. He is sent to an escape-proof castle where the German's keep their high risk prisoners. There he meets a Czech officer, Kent Taylor and a Russian doctor who is played by Annabella. They manage to escape during an Allied bombing raid and lead the Gestapo on a merry chase across the country. Then it turns out that Taylor is really a Nazi spy hoping to reach England with the perfect story. Fists fly and guns blaze before the nasty Nazi is disposed of. Montgomery and Annabella then manage to get to the Ducth underground who get them to England. There is even time to even the score with the evil Martin Kosleck. Quick pace and decent production values move this one right along. The film features some good model work for the aircraft scenes. Annabella was the one time wife of film star Tyrone power. Good war thriller.
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gordonl5622 March 2008
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boblipton3 January 2024George Montgomery is a bomber pilot. His plane is shot down, and his kid brother is killed. He's taken prisoner, but escapes with Czech Kent Taylor and Russian Annabella. As they make their way to Holland and, they hope, freedom, Montgomery doesn't know that one of his companions is actually a Gestapo agent, using the information gathered on their journey to destroy the Underground.
It's an enthusiastically performed but rather rote movie from 20th Century-Fox's B unit. Three directors worked on it: Edward Ludwig, Harold Schuster, and some fill-in shooting by John Brahm. None of the wanted credit, and it was released under a pseudonym. With Walter Kingsford, Robert Barratt, Victor Kilian, and Christian Rub. -
dbdumonteil14 October 2008French actress Annabella, (whose brother was killed by the Nazis)after leaving her native country for the broader horizons of Hollywood often devoted her career to propaganda movies :"tonight we raid Calais " (1943) " 13,Rue Madeleine " ,probably the best of the lot ,and this one.
This is a low budget movie entirely filmed in studios.It depicts a chocolate box Germany (and Holland).Montgomery is a war prisoner who escapes from a camp with a Russian (!) doctor and tries to get to England,carrying important documents ,not to fall into the Nazi's hands.
Watchable,if completely implausible (mainly the ending),this movie makes sometimes think ,in its last part,of George Seaton's "the counterfeit traitor" (1962), a feeling the presence of the Nazi brat reinforces . -
mark.waltz26 August 2022I don't know if I could trust George Montgomery with allied secrets since he didn't even seem to know that the Russian doctor in complete uniforms standing before him was a woman (Annabella). They have just climbed down the walls of a Nazi prison with Kent Taylor and are in hiding when he makes this discovery. Montgomery is seeking revenge for the violent murder of his brother who had parachuted out of the plane that Montgomery was piloting to land behind enemy lines. German pilot Martin Kosleck took great pleasure in gunning down the brother so Montgomery will take great pleasure in taking care of Kosleck.
It's pretty enjoyable with its light-hearted atmosphere in spite of all of the ridiculousness of the details of the story. There's an obnoxious little boy in an SS uniform acting like he's the fuhrer's right hand man, screaming orders at Montgomery and Annabella, simply pick up and tossed out of the room by Montgomery before discovering that the two are wanted by the SS. So many other implausibilities, and always fun to pick out, because they just seem to get even more absurd. This wasn't played as a comedy however because the Nazis are not buffoons. So the mixes of moods becomes perplexing, and it's an unrealistic view of espionage during the great war for freedom and the protection of democracy.