OPERATION AMSTERDAM is a strong WW2 movie with a great premise: a team including a Brit and two Dutch are sent into Amsterdam just as the Nazis are invading the country. They've been tasked with retrieving a priceless cache of diamonds from the city's jewellers and thus preventing them from falling into German hands. Along the way they must contend with German mines, bombing, Fifth Columnists, and the German soldiers who have already begun arriving in the city.It's one of the strongest backdrops I can remember seeing in a film and the suspense goes through the roof from the outset. What I liked about OPERATION AMSTERDAM is that, despite the outlandish premise, the whole thing is rooted in realism; there are no gung-ho heroics, just characters struggling through as best they can. The production values are excellent and while there isn't a wealth of needless action in the film, a climactic firefight is expertly choreographed and one of the best filmed ever (eat your heart out, HEAT!).The cast is very fine and includes Peter Finch in a solid hero-type role. My favourite character was that of the lovely Eva Bartok, who plays a resistance fighter with courage and determination, even more so than the men she helps. The real star of the show, though, is director Michael McCarthy, who had previously only helmed TV fare and low budget B-films. In OPERATION AMSTERDAM he was given a proper budget and ran away with it, although the success was bittersweet; he died in the same year the film was released.

"Operation Amsterdam" is an excellent movie about a little known espionage mission and rescue raid early in World War II. The movie is based on true events from a novel by David E. Walker. Walker was a war correspondent and was connected with British military intelligence. After the war, he wrote 10 novels. Most were war-related. The most famous of his works was "Adventure in Diamonds," on which this movie is based. It went through 30 printings in four languages from 1955 to 1980. The story is about a special mission put together hastily to get the industrial diamonds out of Amsterdam after the Germans invaded the Netherlands on May 10, 1940. Amsterdam then was the diamond capital of the world – handling the bulk of the world's uncut diamonds. Today, that distinction goes to nearby Antwerp, Belgium. One wonders if author Walker had something to do with the operation, or if he just learned of it in his intelligence and journalist functions. Anyway, it's a nice plot with excellent technical production and other values. At least one other reviewer commented about the starkness of the street scenes and reality of the scenes around the harbor. I agree. This movies was made within 14 years after the end of the war, when it was possible to stage such scenes, and when the lay of the land hadn't changed so much form the war years. There were yet no modern buildings, ships and other things that one would see today. One or two people found it a slow-moving film. Well, if one expects lots of war action, that's true. But that's not what the story was about. I think the director and others did an admirable job in portraying the sense of uneasiness mixed with fear, confusion and worry among the people in Amsterdam as they awaited the German occupation. The cast are all very good. The leads especially are excellent. Peter Finch is Jan Smit, Eva Bartok is Anna, Tony Britton is Major Dillon Alexander Knox is Walter Keyster, Malcolm Keen is Johan Smit and Christopher Rhodes is Alex. I think the film showed very well what we learned in history – how many of the Jews were conflicted about giving up their wealth which might be used for bargaining chips later on. At that time, the Holocaust was just beginning and there was little knowledge of what would happen. To most people then, it probably seemed so heinous as to be unbelievable. But for our hindsight today, most people living now may have felt and believed as they did then. Even with the warnings of the persecution and oppression of Jews since Kirstallnact of 1933, many people couldn't fathom the depths of depravity to which the human race could fall in the ensuring Nazi pogrom. One other aspect of this movie is noteworthy. This film, made in 1959, depicts an ugly side of some of the Dutch population at the outbreak of the war. A significant number of people were sympathizers with Germany, if not with the Nazi party. And, there were quite a few collaborators. A couple of other later movies about the Dutch Resistance during the war bring that point home. It was in Amsterdam that a family hid Anne Frank's family, but a suspicious neighbor eventually betrayed the Franks and their protectors. In this film, a sizable number of the Dutch military in Amsterdam seem to have been won over to the German cause. German paratroopers were used to take some key places and foment disorder, but it's not likely that they replaced so many Dutch soldiers in uniform.While not a film with lots of action, there is considerable suspense and intrigue in "Operation Amsterdam" to keep viewers on the edge of our seats. It's historical value make it an important film to include in any serious World War II film collection.

Unseen Nazi jackboots are marching into Holland in the darkest days of WWII and Churchill's government is worried about all the industrial diamonds lying around in Amsterdam that could be used for the German war effort. Being British, we're obviously not going to rely on Frenchy to nip across and spirit the city's entire stock away before the invading hordes arrive so we send a rather colourless secret agent in the form of Tony Britton, the son of an Amsterdam diamond merchant (Peter Finch) and another chap who just seems to be along for the ride (Alexander Knox, who looks worrying dispensable throughout but somehow manages to emerge from the entire escapade unscathed).Our unlikely heroes hitch a lift to Amsterdam from a distraught Eva Bartok who has just witnessed her boyfriend's boat being bombed by the Luftwaffe and is about to drive into the harbour waters to look for him. At first they fear she might be a fifth columnist, but she turns out to be a plucky heroine, picking up the machine gun of a fallen resistance fighter to sullenly strafe the enemy at one point.Operation Amsterdam is one of those films that deserves to be better known because it's really quite good. The location photography of an eerily near-deserted Amsterdam is effective, and the tension is ramped up quite nicely until the whole thing seems to run out of steam in the final reel as our heroes make their getaway. The problem is that nobody is really aware that they are in fact getting away because their exploits haven't yet been uncovered. Anyway, when the film isn't testing our heroes it's commenting on the unenvious position in which the City's diamond merchants – many of whom are Jewish and only too aware of the treatment meted out to their creed by the Nazis. One old chap tries to bargain a place on the boat back to Britain for his sick, elderly wife but is gently rebuffed.Perhaps the film's main weakness is the suspicion that something wasn't quite right during post-production. Midway through, the film seems to take a disconcerting leap forward, and suddenly there's little Melvyn Hayes sitting in the back of a car with our fellows. Now where did he come from? A neighbour of hero number three's mum, apparently (so that's why he tagged along), although we're never see this mother-and-son reunion – even though you suspect the scenes were filmed.

Operation Amsterdam is a pleasant surprise. It has both a strong story and some unusual cinematic touches to keep the viewer interested.The story of the British secret service agents who are sent to Amsterdam to recover industrial diamonds before the German invasion is a familiar one, and their eventual safe escape is predictable enough.What interested me was the atmosphere of fear and bleakness that the producers manage to convey. The empty streets, in bright sunlight; the columns of fleeing people; the confusion of not knowing who are enemies or friends, makes for a better than average effects.Added to this a score made only with drums, and some very abrupt editing that is almost painful to watch, makes this a worthwhile watch.