In Enemy Country

There are two main themes to this movie: A war time mission carried out by French intelligence and a story of true love and lost love. The main character is a colonel. He is the one referred to in the text that scrolls over the opening shot of the Arc de Triomphe............ He is stated to be a cold and ruthless agent of the Deuxième Bureau.

I like this movie but it isn't meant for everyone. It is really not an action movie, though it does have about 12 minutes of action towards the end. The longest continuous action sequence is about 4 minutes. I counted 65 explosions during this span. That doesn't happen until 67 minutes into the movie. When there is action it is very well done by 1968 standards anyway.

In Enemy Country (IEC) has relatively short scenes. Movies after 1961 tended to have scenes that averaged from 1 to 3 minutes. IEC scenes average 1 minute 56 seconds, however, the first 21 scenes are shorter, averaging only 1 minute and 41 seconds. Its not just the shortness of the scenes but also the fact that almost every scene at the beginning is in a completely different physical location. This movie covers a lot of ground in the first 30 minutes. My feeling is it could have been better if the movie ran for around 140 minutes. Events at the beginning unfold rather fast, making it hard for the viewer to get their bearings. I imagine it was intended to give a sense of the chaos as must have been felt around 1939-40.

Initially I had a hard time figuring out where some of the scenes were located. Like when the movie goes from 1939 to 1943, I thought the German Baron was still in France since Germany occupied France after 1940. It turns out he is in Germany somewhere near Kiel. I had to re-watch the beginning to catch this and a few other details. When Charles parachutes onto a beach, he is in Poland.

Essentially everything that happens in the first half hour is to convince the Germans that Denise is a French traitor. Charles character doesn't blink an eye while he destroys (directly in some cases and indirectly in others) innocent peoples lives to carry this out.

Since Anthony Franciosa's role as Charles requires him to be rather cold and all business, he doesn't get a chance to show much emotion in his part. If you watch closely, Charles is not as cold as his exterior shows. By using subtle pauses in lines and just a quick reflective look, you can see that sometimes he is internally questioning the cost this mission is taking on his soul.

The majority of the movie is very serious, one of my favorite scenes is where Charles is playing a drunk to fool two German guards. This is the lightest scene in the movie. Other than that there really is no comic relief.

There are a couple of really good lines from this movie. One is about not being able to love and appears very near the movies end. The other I will give below.:

After Charles feels responsible for causing the death of General Marchois, he volunteers himself to do the dangerous mission rather than picking a subordinate. Charles superior, General Grieux exclaims,"Sometimes working out a sense of guilt is good for the soul." To which Charles replies," I don't have a soul, and neither do you."

The take aways from the movie: Its hard to really tell how much good the Deuxième Bureau really did (in this movie anyway) There was a cost to convince the Germans that Denise was a traitor. There were unintended casualties and consequences. My thought is that the fast pace of the movie was by design of the director. It helps to show why Charles character is all business and never takes time for niceties.

By the way the Deuxième Bureau didn't truly exist in 1943 as it was dissolved in 1940 with the armistice France made with Germany. However the term Deuxième Bureau was still used to refer to the remaining French intelligence.

To sum up. This isn't a typical World War II movie. It doesn't cover any specific battle. The plot gets fairly involved so the viewer has to do a bit of work to get the enjoyment out of the movie. I find it to be a wonderful change of pace from WWII action flicks. Michael Constantine gave a great performance as Ladislov. Constantine would have been a perfect roboman in a Doctor Who series. There was nice friction between Anthony Franciosa's and Anjanette Comer's characters. Watch the faces of Charles and Denise at the end. It shows more of what was lost than any spoken words.

I am not fond of war movies, especially spy war movies; except maybe 36 HOURS, which is riveting, unlike this one. This is not a bad film, but it brings no surprises at all, only an acceptable directing work. I would have prefered to watch another film, for instance a western, as the last film from Harry Keller, one of the best Universal Studios western specialist. In this kind of spy war films, you can prefer Anthony Mann's HEROES OF TELEMARK or Michael Anderson's OPERATION CROSSBOW, both made three years earlier. Only the bittersweet ending is really unusual and worth. In most movies where the lead character loses his gal, his best friend, his brother or parents, and after he has killed all the bad guys, everything gets fine for him again. He smiles, laughes, seems to have forgotten the missing persons. For the happy ending. Rubbish. Here, it is unusual and more realistic and moving too. As SNABBA CASH series ending.

This movie is like an episode of "Hogan's Heroes" dragged out to nearly two hours.

If you're hoping this is something like "Where Eagles Dare" ... you'll be disappointed.

The story opens with a French plan to deceive the Germans in 1939. Given what happened to France in 1940, it couldn't have worked very well.

The main story involves a scheme to sabotage a German factory that makes super-deadly torpedoes. With a lot of silly action and a sillier subplot involving a Frenchwoman marrying a German officer, you may soon lose interest. At least I did.

I hoped Mr. Limpet would show up and thrum some energy into this. Alas, no such luck.

In Enemy Country is an OK time filler about undercover agents trying to stop the Germans from developing a super torpedo during WWII. The action is a bit bland for much of the picture, but the final sequence is quite taut. Anthony Franciosca heads the cast and delivers a tolerable performance, but he lacks the range of expression to do anything really interesting with the role. Anyone who is interested in WWII will probably enjoy it, and anyone who likes impossible mission flicks set deep behind enemy lines will be well satisfied.

"In Enemy Country" is a Wartime movie in which some secret agents on their impossible mission to steal the most devastating weapon of World War II while attempting to destroy a Nazi installation .This passable picture packs fine stars , intrigue , action packed , suspense and impressive battles . Relaxed entertainment for war films fans dealing with a espionage tale stars Denise Marchois (Anjanette Comer), a secret agent who before the war married a German Baron (Paul Hubschmid) in order to provide herself with security whilst she carried on spying . It deals with a trio (Anthony Franciosa , Guy Stockwell, Tom Bell) of Allied agents are assigned by high command to a extremely dangerous assignment : They have to take a deadly new type of torpedo hidden in a Nazi stronghold in France . Col. Charles Waslow-Carton (Tony Franciosa) and Lt. Col. Philip Braden (Guy Stockwell) are picked for a perilous mission which requires them to pose as prisoners of war in order to get behind enemy lines and attempting to infiltrate the Nazi rockets site . After the initial set-up , much of the tale takes place in occupied France and in a forced labour camp . Their mission is complicated by appearing one traitor , several dangers and Denise finds her feelings for the Baron beginning to conflict things . Events go wrong when the prisoner of war camp is bombed and the men have to dodge flames and explosions to escape.

Exciting WWII military thriller about some undercover soldiers are on a risked mission , the three must work together to destroy a new type of torpedo which the enemy have been working on in a secret location in France , including a moving final and overwhelming pyrotechnics . It is an acceptable warfare film about spies masquerading as prisoners of war with spectacular scenes of action and drama , but if you watch hoping for anything more than just routine action and heroics you are going to end up disappointed . There's a thrilling developing but it's more a espionage story than the typical ¨gung-ho¨ wartime flick. The main focus is placed on these hero soldiers risking their necks to destroy a torpedo as well as the underlying storyline of Denise having been undercover for years , having fallen in love with the Baron who she married and felt betrayed . Usual setting made to utilise the redundant ¨Universal International¨adventure scenarios and from another prisoner of war film. Thrilling war film in which there are nail-biting action scenes , drama , intrigue , explosion , suspenseful set pieces and almost overloaded with stars . The movie gets a simple emotional appeal , professionalism and being rightly shot , though mediocre . Breathtaking as well as evocative musical score by William Lava . Atmospheric production design and nice special effects , but lots of stock footage about the planes bombing the Nazi installations . This blazing WWII yarn was made at the time the Sixties when the Wartime genre was in maxim splendor and pulled the public into cinemas in droves as they were released . One of the main entertainments of this so-so picture is to discover the list of notorious secondaries appearing here and there that include the following ones : Tom Bell , Michael Constantine , Harry Townes , Lee Bergere, John Marley , Milton Selzer, Patric Knowles , Harry Landers , among others.

The motion picture was regularly directed by Harry Keller . Harry worked at Republic Pictures , specializing in westerns , where he shot a lot , such as : Phantom Stallion ,Red River Shore ,Paso Stampede , Bandits of the West , Savage Frontier , Marshal of Cedar Rock , Thundering Caravans , Black Hills Ambush , Rose Cimarron , Fort Dodge , Stampede , Desert of lost men , Tarnished and most of them starred by Allan Lane and Rex Allen . When that studio folded he went to Universal, directing westerns again : Quantez , Gundown at Sandoval , 6 Black Horses , interspersed with some dramas/thrillers : Step Down to Terror , Man Afraid , Voice in the mirror , Female Animal , comedies : Tammy and the Doctor and war pictures : In Enemy Country. In the late 1960s he stopped directing films and started producing them, although he did keep his hand in directing TV shows. Keller gained some degree of fame as the director called in by Universal to reshoot scenes from Orson Welles' masterpiece Touch of evil (1958), and by most accounts -including Welles'- matched Welles' style quite well . Rating In Enemy Country (1968) : 5/10 .