Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

bsmith5552 "The Commandos Strike at Dawn" is a film that I must admit, I had never heard of. So it was an enjoyable experience watching it for the first time.The setting, filmed in Canada, is a small Norwegian fishing village just prior to WWII breaking out. At a wedding we meet the main characters, Eric Toreson (Paul Muni), Johan Bergesen (Ray Collins), his wife (Lillian Gish - looking lovelier than ever), Admiral Bowen of the British Navy (Sir Cedric Hardwicke), his daughter Judith (Anna Lee) and son Captain Robert Bowen (Robert Coote, the town Pastor (Rod Cameron), School teacher (George Macready) hotelier Karl Arnesen (Louis Jean Heydt) his wife Hilma (Rosemary DeCamp) among others.Toresan is attracted to Judith and a possible relationship develops. But as WWII looms Admiral Bowen, his daughter and son return to England. WWii breaks out and the Germans invade Norway and sent a detachment to the little village headed by a Colonel (Arthur Margetson) and his brutal captain (Alexander Knox). Almost immediately, Johan Bergesen is taken away for "questioning" returning later as a broken man.Toresan and the other townsfolk try to follow the German rules but the atrocities continue. Finally Toresan has had enough and forms a resistance group. He later kills the German Colonel and is forced to flee for his life, leaving his young daughter in the care of a friend. In hiding, Toresan learns about the building of a German air base.Fleeing to England in a hidden boat, Toresan and the others learn that Karl Arnesen has informed on them and they take care of him. Reaching England, Toresan informs the British about the German airfield and offers to lead them to the spot. Before leaving on his mission, he renews his acquaintance with Judith and the possibility of marriage is discussed. Robert Bowen is assigned the task of leading the commandos for their strike after dawn.The commandos surprise the Germans and destroy the air base. Toresan's daughter was supposed to have met her father following the completion of his mission but has been captured by the Germans. Toresan and Bowen lead the commandos on a mission to free the young girl but.................................................................................Paul Muni as always gives an excellent performance as the fisherman forced into a role for which he is ill prepared. Lillian Gish returns to the screen in an all too brief brief role as a patriot's wife. Alexander Knox is suitably evil as the German Captain. You can't help but notice the six foot four Rod Cameron in an early role. Also George Macready who would go on to play sophisticated heavies makes an early appearance. And watch for Lloyd Bridges as the German soldier asking for directions. Walter Sande and Philip Van Zandt also appear in small roles as Germans.Filmed in the middle of the war, the ending offers hope for the future at a time when the outcome of the war was as yet unknown.

rachrules-33444 Most interesting is when Mr Bergesen, the outspoken man who had been trying to warn everyone else about the threats of the day said sarcastically to one of the German officers, "Your Norwegian brother is ready to enter the New World Order". Remember, the favorite line of G.H.W. Bush. His dad, Prescott funded Hitler. I also liked the message Eric told his daughter about people are bad, and people are good. People can make themselves better or make themselves worse.

JohnHowardReid The title here is a bit of a come-on, as there is actually very little action and the script is inclined to be slow-moving. Also Paul Muni's character is not supplied with a direct motive for the commandant's murder. True, there is some tension, but less talk and more action would have helped. Fortunately, the movie starts well. The first ten minutes are really great. True, director John Farrow tries hard to keep building up suspense despite the handicaps of stilted dialog and miscasting in crucial roles - for instance, instead of playing the sadistic German commandant, George Macready plays the local schoolmaster! Actually, Alexander Knox would have been ideal in this role, but instead he is cast as the vicious German captain! This odd miscasting is shown up when it's Knox who says the chaplain's prayer before the commando raid, and Knox again who supplies the off-camera propaganda plug at the film's conclusion about corruption in high places.Paul Muni tends to overact and is often indulgently shown in close- up where his penchant for eye-rolling gets full rein. Sir Cedric Hardwicke is surprisingly stiff as the admiral and Anna Lee makes a rather colorless daughter. Despite making a strained attempt to speak and look like a hearty Norwegian, Ray Collins, comes across strongly as the tortured Bergerson, but Lillian Gish plays his wife with an over-theatrical technique that approaches caricature. Oddly enough, the most convincing performance comes from Flying Officer Robert Coote (though don't let this billing confuse you. Coote was a professional actor who had been making movies since 1931!)The script is inclined to be slow-moving. The title, for instance, is a misnomer as there is very little action apart from the climactic raid.

sol1218 (Some Spoilers) The war between Britain and France with Nazi Germany finally spilled over into neutral Denmark an Norway in the early spring of 1940. It was then when Hitler's troops conquered both those free and neutral country's he and his thugs also awakened the fighting and free spirit of the ancient Vikings represented in the freedom loving Norwegian people.Widower Erik Toresen, Paul Muni,was anything but a fighting man when the war first began. A nature lover and follower of the fishery, salmon and herring, movements in the North Sea Eric expected to sit out the war and let the others, British USSR and Americans, do the fighting for him. Like most of the people in now Nazi-occupied Norway. It was when the Nazis started to round up and shoot his fellow citizens for such terrible crimes as wanting to be free and staying out after hours, thus breaking the Nazi imposed curfew, that Eric turned over another leaf. It was also when Eric's fellow Norwegian and good friend Gunner Korstad, Richared Darr, was shot by the Nazis for talking and asking, for his freedom, too much that had Eric not only join the resistance movement but killed the German officer who ordered Gunner shot!Better then your average run-of-the-mill WWII propaganda movie due to the fact that Academy Award winning actor Paul Muni as well as top British actor Cedric Hardwicke, as Admiral Bowen, being in it. The fact that Muni, or Eric Trsesen, was given a British girlfriend Judith Bowen, Lillian Lee, who also happened to be Admiral Bowen's daughter was just a bit too much to take. Eric after some five years of being available after his wife died in giving birth to their daughter Solveig, Ann Carter, couldn't find himself a nice sweet and beautiful Nordic-looking Norwegian girl to get hitched up with!On the run from the Nazi, for killing a German officer, Eric accidentally comes across a secret German airfield being built on the Norwegian coast. This airfield will provide the Nazis a base, out of the reach of the RAF, to bomb not only Northern Britain but attack and sink British and American convoys loaded with arms and supplies for hard hit and battered, by being invaded by Hitlers armies, Soviet Union. If successful the airfield will end up winning the war for the Nazis and thus enslave, including Norway, the entire free world!Making his way back to England by boat via the treacherous waters of the choppy and dangerous North Sea, the Norwegians are excellent seamen, Eric and and a number of fellow freedom fighters persuade the British, through his good friend Admiral Bowen, to launch a sneak attack on the German airfield with him, knowing the area as well as the back of his hand, leading the way.Despite the heavy and heroic action and explosive fireworks on shore with Eric and the British Commandos striking at dawn against the Germans the movie just didn't live up to it's title "Commandos Strike at Dawn". The British Commandos were in fact members of the standing British, and Canadian, army and not wearing the camouflage uniforms and berets of the elite British Commandos. The assault on the Germans, who were caught with their pants down, was staged as a full scale military & navel operation with 150 to 200 capacity landing crafts hitting the beaches. Not with your usual commando rubber dinghies, with a capacity of 8 to 10 men, sneaking up on the what should have been the very alert German troops! As for the striking in the pre-dawn darkness to catch the heavily armed Germans by surprise the "commando" attack actually took place in what looked like at high noon! The absolute worse time for a sneak and surprise operation like that giving the defending German troops, who for some strange reason were for the most part asleep in their barracks, all the advantage that they needed!***SPOILER ALERT***Added to the excellent battle scenes we were also given the fact that the attack on the Germans was very personal for Eric. The dirty Nazi swines had his daughter, Solveig, held hostage in the village and it was only up to Eric, and not his fellow commandos, to save her before all the dust cleared. Eric as well as his fellow commandos risking their life, which they didn't really have to with their mission already accomplished, went out in a blaze of glory saving Solveig suffering the most casualties during the entire operation. In Eric's case he ended up giving his people hope for the future in finally ridding their country of the occupying and ruthless Nazis. That is in following the course of action, as a fearless and courageous Norwegian freedom fighter, that Eric despite of his peace-loving nature eventually took.