Many of the comments regarding this picture acknowledge that it's propaganda but, despite that, it's a picture worth seeing. What's lost by merely categorizing the British film as "propaganda" is recognizing that it's 1941 and the Battle of Britain has already been fought. England's taken a terrible beating and is all that stands against Hitler in Europe. America's not in the war yet. Consider that situation when you watch the movie, a thoughtful, expansive story that dares to humanize the German side despite the fact that it was a distinct possibility that Great Britain was in real danger of becoming New Reichsland. Of course it was propaganda. How could you make a meaningful film in 1941 that wasn't? What makes this movie unique is a combination of writing, good acting and photography (beautiful black and white) that makes Canada come alive with a focus on what human beings really mean to each other. The Powell-Pressburger partnership is legendary, of course, but their brilliance is best appreciated when you can watch a 1941 propaganda film in the 21st century and still find it riveting.

Earlier Powell and Pressburger (pre-Archers?...?) skit about a bunch of crashed Germans in Canada during WWII, right before the US enters the war. The Germans want to make it to the US border where they'll have political asylum, but first they must get through the vast landscape and 11 million population of not-quite-so-wary Canadians--adversaries that are more happy to listen to their German philosophy with a cock-headed grin and a justifiable democratic argument against their politics than they are trying to stop or kill the group in particular. Yet somehow the group of six Germans quickly falls to five, then four, then three, then two...As a bit of WWII propaganda it has its fallacies. As a survival in enemy territory narrative, it's interesting because you want to see how far they'll go (everyone loves the underdog), but you also want them to get stopped. The Archers mix those contrary conceits very well. And as a character-based war drama, it's a bit too caricaturistic to take too seriously. Everyone has extreme accents, and the lead German has the faint trace of a lisp. Powell and Pressburger do the best when contrasting their hyper-diagonal marching against the curved countryside, and they take a particularly "democratic" stance here--one so democratic, at points it lingers near communism, which the Germans are appropriately appalled at but not all that believably considering their close proximity to this little country called the USSR (perhaps you've heard of it).It's fun seeing these two auteurs get a handle on the type of characters they like and the type of filming they want to do, but later they were to go on to create much more sophisticated, gorgeous, and well-told works that stand out greater in the annals of cinematic history. They would keep such things as the caricatures (the Yank in A Canterbury Tale, the entire figure of Colonel Blimp), international drama (Black Narcissus, A Matter of Life and Death), and love of the countryside (A Canterbury Tale, A Matter of Life or Death) in much more solid and spectacular narratives. This movie is an early work, and feels it, but it's not quite so bad as their somewhat regrettable I Know Where I'm Going.--PolarisDiB

One of the more interesting World War II propaganda films, due to outstanding writing (by Emeric Pressburger), direction (by Michael Powell), and performances. The opening credits and sequences may be confusing. The story involves six Nazis making their way from Hudson Bay (in northeastern Canada) to cross the "49th Parallel" (the United States/Canadian border), after their U-boat (submarine warship) is damaged. At the time the film was made, the U.S. would have been a "safe" (neutral) country. Also, the film does not "star" Leslie Howard and Lawrence Olivier - rather, the lead actor is Eric Portman (as Hirth).Mr. Portman and crew do very well in their roles. The most interesting aspect of the film is that the Germans are written to include a sympathetic Nazi, who wavers in his support for the Fuehrer. The most satisfying of the film's loosely threaded stories involves the sympathetic Nazi bonding with a Canadian immigrant settlement, led by Anton Walbrook (as Peter). This, and the segment with Raymond Massey (as Andy Brock), is where you'll find the filmmakers delivering their most palpable (and eloquent) sermonettes. The film is too episodic for its own good - one story, with more focus on Portman's crew, would have sufficed.****** 49th Parallel (10/8/41) Michael Powell ~ Eric Portman, Leslie Howard, Laurence Olivier

I had to replay the movie and sit with a map. One reader asked why planes would be looking for a U-boat in the Hudson Bay. An Eskimo saw one going west through the Hudson Strait."Wolstenhome" was mentioned on a bulletin board in Winnepeg. That was known as Eric Cove, Quebec, or Ivujivik on the Ungava Peninsula. So that places the sinking of the U-boat in the northwestern corner of Quebec. This explains the French-Canadian. They also show a view on a map going south over the Belcher Islands, in the eastern Hudson Bay. This may be a part of a large meteor crater.So how does that tie in with "let's follow the rail line along the coast to Lake Winnipeg" ? That lake is nowhere near a coast. They seem to jump from the western side of Hudson's Bay to the eastern side & back. The bulletin board said an oil slick was found in Lake Winnipeg, where the sea plane crashed, more than a thousand kilometers from James Bay. Aside from that, the movie was well done.