A long-entrenched British agent planted in the German Army is urged to continue his work during the Second World War, but struggles to keep secret his true identity from the Third Reich.A long-entrenched British agent planted in the German Army is urged to continue his work during the Second World War, but struggles to keep secret his true identity from the Third Reich.A long-entrenched British agent planted in the German Army is urged to continue his work during the Second World War, but struggles to keep secret his true identity from the Third Reich.
Donald Pleasence
- Gen. Hardt
- (as Donald Pleasance)
- Director
- Writers
- J. Alvin Kugelmass
- Michael Wilson(originally as James O'Donnell)
- Alfred Lewis Levitt(originally uncredited)
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaColonel Alex Scotland did serve with the German Army between 1903 and 1907. However during the Second World War he was in charge of the London centre for the interrogation of prisoners of war.
- GoofsUse of reel to reel tape recorder. Whilst Americans may believe tape recording was a post-war development, it is a fact that Germany had built and developed practical tape recorders in the 1940's. They were used in both military and broadcasting situations. After the war, the Ampex corporation was given the German technology as a reward for their war work and they began to manufacture tape recorders in the US. The Ampex model 300 was a very close copy of the German production unit. Some industry journals even suggested that Ampex sold existing units seized from German warehouses before they began manufacture. However, the unit shown in the film is not an Ampex 300 and it is unlikely that German tape would be mounted on plastic reels as shown.
- Crazy creditsThe credits read inspired by A.P. Scotland's "The London Cage". But in Scotland's own words "I had been a German officer... but that was from 1903 to 1907 during the Hottentot Wars in South Africa. True, also, I had secretly worked and successfully fooled the Germans and worked behind their lines... but that was alongside the Kaiser's Army in 1916." In WW1 & WW2 Scotland served as an intelligence officer interrogating captured German POW's. This culminated in his interrogating suspected war criminals at the end of the war.
- SoundtracksIch Liebe Dich
by Peter Hart
Featured review
A German general as a spy for England during the war, trusted by Hitler and Canaris
The amazing thing about this film is its actuality - it's a true story, general Schottland was actually a British spy in Germany from 1914 to the end of the second world war, with high responsibilities as a general and trusted implicitly by Hitler himself. The one fellow officer who didn't trust him is played by Alexander Knox who makes a fearful Nazi bully and idiot. Gia Scala plays the woman, a singer in a relationship with Jack Hawkins and others, and there is a traumatic story very similar to "The Counterfeit Traitor" with William Holden and Lilli Palmer some years later, but this is in black and white and sticks very strictly to realism, postponing true romance till after the war, if possible. The situation of general Schottland is hair-raising. His responsibility was tremendous, and he had the power and means to obstruct several of the most vital operations of the Germans during the war, for example the outcome of the battle of the Ardennes, actually causing immense casualties, and that's the shocking insight of this film - you learn how little millions of human lives mattered to officers in charge of the war. They are perfectly strict in casualness, and if one mark with a pen means the sacrifice of millions, it's for them just a mark of the pen. Jack Hawkings keeps up a terrible balance, constantly throwing a glance behind his back, constantly watched by the Gestapo, and ultimately no longer able to suppress his humanity. It's a great film on a small scale and definietely an enduring classic for all times.
helpful•165
- clanciai
- Jan 4, 2019
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Details
- Runtime1 hour 33 minutes
- Color
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