Secret Mission (1944)

hyped garbage

How sad is this?

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Hugh Williams (Peter Garnett), Carla Lehmann (Michele de Carnot), James Mason (Roul de Carnot), Roland Culver (Red Gowan), Michael Wilding (Nobby Clark), Nancy Price (Violette), Percy Walsh (Fayolle), Anita Gombault (Estelle), David Page (René), Betty Warren (Mrs Nobby Clark), Nicholas Stuart (Captain Mackenzie), Brefni O'Rorke (Father Jouvet), Karel Stepanek (Major Lang), F.R. Wendhausen (General von Reichmann), John Salew (Captain Grune), Herbert Lom (medical officer), Beatrice Varley (Mrs Donkin), Yvonne Andre (Martine), Stewart Granger (Sub-Lieutenant Jackson).Director: HAROLD FRENCH. Screenplay: Anatole de Grunwald and Basil Bartlett — from an original story by Shaun Terence Young. Director of photography: Bernard Knowles. Special effects: Percy Day, Desmond Dickinson and John Mills. Music: Mischa Spoliansky. Art director: Carmen Dillon. Editor: E. B. Jarvis. Supervising art director: Paul Sheriff. Camera operator: Cyril Knowles. Still photographs: Jack Dooley. Production manager: Tom White. Assistant director: W.N. Boyle. Sound supervisor: A.W. Watkins. Sound recording: John Dennis. Western Electric Sound System. Made with the co-operation of the Ministry of Information, the War Office, and the Air Ministry. Producer: Marcel Hellman. A Marcel Hellman Production. An Excelsior Film.Copyright 4 January 1945 by English Films, Inc. U.S. release through English Films: 26 September 1944. No recorded New York opening. U.K. release through General Film Distributors: 5 October 1942 (sic). Australian release through G-B-D/20th Century-Fox: 3 June 1943. 8,542 feet. 95 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Three officers and a private from British Intelligence are landed in Occupied France.COMMENT: A bizarre mixture of straight spy suspense and lowbrow comedy. Fortunately as the plot progresses, Michael Wilding's comic Cockney disappears for long stretches, allowing the more suspenseful elements to take hold in between the usual unlikely bouts of romance. On the whole, thrills win out. Good production values help. The photography is especially attractive. On the debit side, Mason's fans are not going to be happy either with their hero's tiny part or his ridiculous French accent. It's the far less personable Hugh Williams who steals most of the footage.

For once I am in agreement with virtually everyone who has posted a comment here. It is, of course, impossible to view this film with the eyes and sensibilities of 1942, but against that we have all seen films made in and/or around this time which are NOT risible, In Which We Serve, The Way Ahead, spring to mind, so now we have to ask if the audiences who watched the two films cited also were able to watch Secret Mission with a straight face. In its favour it boasts a strong cast in the shape of James Mason, Hugh Williams, Michael Wilding, but then it negates that by making Mason and Wilding at least look totally inept and I can only suppose they were bound contractually to appear in it. It isn't even good social history as clearly no one behaved like this at any time or anywhere in history.

An impressive cast: James Mason, Michael Wilding, Stewart Granger, Karel Stepanek, inter alia. And that's about it for the good parts.Even the cast can't lift this wartime espionage thriller above the routine. James Mason is a splendid actor but should have stayed away from any role calling for a foreign accent. In "The Desert Rats" he mangled German. Here he does to a French accent what the Luftwaffe did to Stalingrad.Michael Wilding sounds positively uncomfortable with his working-class London locutions. Karel Stepanek, who made virtually a career out of playing Nazis, at least SOUNDS right but the role seems to have come by way of a cookie cutter. What a stereotype. I can't blame the writers too much, though -- this being written in 1942, a bad year for the Allies.Let's say this is an historical curiosity. The future held better things for most of the people involved in this low-budget thriller.

This otherwise routine propaganda piece, intended to lift spirits during the war, is redeemed by its focus on the personal effects of war. We can sympathize with the tough moral choices faced by the occupied French population, while we still have time for a laugh and a languid kiss before getting on with the serious business of outwitting the Nazis.