I think it was Michael Palin who wanted to make a movie in which he ran over someone with a steamroller and Charles Crichton who wanted to make a movie in which the principals got away to South America home free. It doesn't apply to this movie, which is an Ealing movie, but not a comedy, yet shows the care and excellence that Michael Balcon applied to the movies he produced.It starts out at a spy training center in England, run by a seemingly amiable John Robertson Justice. The four top "students" with which this movie concerns itself are Robert Beatty, Simone Signoret, Jack Warner and Gordon Jackson. Beatty, a priest, is sent out earlier. When a rescue is needed, the others follow. However, things go wrong and matters become messy.All of the actors go about things as stoically as they can, but their characters' emotions keep leaking through. The movie keeps throwing up tense moments, some of which are solved heroically, some tragically and some comically. It's a first class movie in all departments, even if the subject has grown commonplace in the aftermath of the Cold War.

I did not know this film about French Belgian resistance army. I did not know either that Chuck Crichton made such non comedy features, and I am not disappointed at all. And Simone Signoret gives here one of the three French partisan character she had - and maybe more, I don't exactly know - in her career. Before Jean-Pierre Melville's ARMEE DES OMBRES and René Clément's LE JOUR ET L'HEURE. She is awesome here and I don't understand the reviews against this movie. I just discover it after decades of film passion. Later is better than never.

A group of uninteresting people are sent into Belgium to blow up a records office and rescue some bloke from prison. Can they succeed?Unfortunately, there is no-one in the cast that anyone can identify with who is in the film for long enough. Gordon Jackson is dreadfully annoying as "Johnny", the schoolboy explosives expert who is out of his depth. Paul Dupuis is the best of the cast as "Picquart", the undercover Gestapo officer who sticks his neck out to help the very annoying Gordon Jackson. Simone Signoret is OK as "Michele" the radio operator but this role could equally have been played by Gisele Preville who played "Julie".Indeed the film has 3 good sections that stick in the mind. One is the shot of "Julie" lying in the field after her parachute jump, staring at the sky and obviously very dead. It's the most shocking image from the film. The second is the scene where "Michele" discovers that her colleague is a traitor while they are sharing a quiet moment in their hideout. And the third is the scene where "Picquart" is trapped in his Nazi office and has to act quickly. That's it. Most of the rest of the film is dull and unengaging. It takes an hour or so before anything of interest happens.A mention goes to Jack Warner as "Max". How on earth did England win a war with lard buckets like him in the army. What a heffalump! And what is the romance between "Michele" and "Johnny" all about? A complete nonsense. There are a few interesting sections but the film disappoints overall.

It's 1943 and a team of saboteurs, some British and some Belgian, are being trained to parachute into Belgium to cause as much damage to the Nazis as they can. After they've landed London learns that one is a traitor. Sound familiar? But this movie is very well done. The heroics are underplayed even though half of the team dies. A special mission they're given is carried out cleverly and reasonably realistically.Among the team members is a young Simone Signoret. In my opinion, over the years she developed into an extraordinarily effective actor. Here, she reflects determination, anguish and a desire not to let herself become emotionally entangled. She discovers the identity of the traitor while they are alone in a farmhouse. He's shaving and she's on the transmitter getting a message from London. The message gives the traitor's name. She picks up her pistol, calls the guy's name so he faces her, and without hesitation shoots him. A very tidy, tough scene. She and a young team member played by Gordon Jackson eventually reach a romantic understanding. Because of Signoret's fierceness as an actor it was a little like watching a teen-age cocker spaniel falling in love with a young tigress.The movie didn't do well when it was released. Some said that it was too close to the war years; nostalgia for courage and victory hadn't set in as it did during the Fifties. Signoret was, in my opinion, one of the great actors of her time with a career that spanned over 40 years. Check out the span with her performance here -- young, hurt, determined and a great looker, with Room at the Top (1959) -- pushing 40, melancholy, sexy, knowing, with Madame Rosa (1977) -- tender up to a point and looking every inch plus more of her age. As she got older she put on weight and didn't seem to give a damn. I doubt if a surgeon's touch-up scalpel ever tightened her face. And Yves Montand was fascinated enough by her for their marriage to last 34 years until her death.