| Secret Mission | |
|---|---|
_DVD_cover.jpg) UK DVD cover | |
| Directed by | Harold French |
| Screenplay by | Anatole de Grunwald Basil Bartlett |
| Story by | Terence Young |
| Produced by | Marcel Hellman |
| Starring | James Mason Hugh Williams Carla Lehmann Roland Culver |
| Cinematography | Bernard Knowles |
| Edited by | Edward B. Jarvis |
| Music by | Mischa Spoliansky |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | General Film Distributors(UK) |
Release dates |
1945 (France) |
Running time | 94 min.[1] |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Box office | 1,759,641 admissions (France)[2] |
Secret Mission is a 1942 Britishwar film directed byHarold French and starringHugh Williams,James Mason,Nancy Price,Carla Lehmann andRoland Culver.[3]
British Army Major Peter Garnett assembles a team consisting of Captain ‘Red’ Gowan, Private ‘Nobby’ Clark and Raoul de Carnot, a member of theFree French forces, during theSecond World War. Their mission is to collect intelligence on German military strength in the coastal area ofoccupied France.Sub-Lieutenant Jackson watches as their dinghy across theEnglish Channel and remarks that he does not envy them their jobs.
Nobby knows the target area well: He used to live inSaint Antoine, where he ran a café with his French wife, Lulu. After killing a sentry once ashore, they set a time and place for a rendezvous in two days with the code for bringing the aircraft. They split up, Gowan and Nobby to the village, Raoul and Garnett to the chateau that is Raoul's ancestral home where Lulu, Nobby's wife, welcomes them.
Raoul and Garnett are welcomed, more or less, by Raoul's sister Michele. Their brother is a prisoner. She wants Raoul to stay and help to manage the land. She is resigned to cooperating with the occupiers, and is too frightened to assist in the mission.
They contact a local businessman, M. Fayolle, now hated by most of the townspeople for his open collaboration with the occupying forces, but in fact secretly working with theFrench Resistance. He and his daughter Estelle have helped 100 Allied servicemen to escape. He provides them with special papers.
At German headquarters, Garnett and Gowan masquerade aschampagne salesmen, aided by a personal letter fromvon Ribbentrop and champagne supplied by Nobby. Having thus established theirbona fides, they do deals with German officers for supplying theirmesses. They are able to photograph a map showing troop disposition, and also extract a great deal of information from the unwary Nazis, who suspect them of being either Gestapo or counter espionage. Annoyed, General von Reichman puts in a call to Berlin.
The agents locate a secret aerodrome, built into a cliffside so that it cannot be bombed. A patrol hears them in the woods, fires into the trees, and Raoul is shot. He dies at home, with Michele and the priest beside him. Angry and heartbroken, Michele tells them to leave,
Raoul died without showing them the important rendezvous point, an ancient tree where he and Michele played as children. They must return to ask Michele where it is. She refuses to help. M. Fayolle and his daughter, Estelle, arrive to speak to Raoul, revealing their role in the Resistance to Michele, risking their lives. They are distressed to learn of Raoul's death; they are here to warn the others that the woods will be heavily patrolled. Reichman has learned that von Ribbentrop never heard of them and has launched a manhunt. Michele goes to warn them and show them the tree, but a patrol captures them. At the tree, Private Clark shows up in the armored propaganda truck (nicknamed the “Music Box”) which he has just hijacked. Garnett and Clark change into Nazi uniforms and head to Nazi headquarters, where he gives the Medical Officer instructions to release a prisoner, Captain MacKenzie, to them. He does so, but becomes suspicious.
At 10 past three a.m., at first light, they signal a squadron of planes carryingparatroopers, who land and overrun the factory and blow it up.
They all rendezvous at the beach. Michele and Garnett have fallen in love. As the others embark by boat to return to England, Michele refuses his offer to take her with them and promises to start working with the Resistance. She gives him the little cross she wears around her neck and they kiss. “Goodbye Michele.” “Au revoir, Peter.” She turns and walks away, slowly at first, then with confidence and purpose.
Leonard Maltin described it as a "Stiff-upper-lip WW2 drama" that is "Well paced dramatically," but whose "comical touches seem awkwardly out of place";[4] while theRadio Times noted, "There's a modicum of excitement" in the efforts of the various characters "to glean information about Nazi invasion plans. But the comic subplot involving Wilding and his French wife, and the romance that develops between Williams and Mason's sister (Carla Lehmann), are embarrassingly twee. Credit to director Harold French for keeping the pace brisk, but this is unremarkable fare";[5] and20/20 Movie Reviews wrote, "the writers of the 1980s British comedy showAllo Allo must have seenSecret Mission at some point because the similarities are just too numerous to be coincidental. The only difference is thatSecret Mission is straight whileAllo Allo is a broad farce. Probably the only comical aspect of the movie is James Mason’s French accent, but he does at least look suitably embarrassed as he substitutes ‘z’s for ‘th’s."[6]