Operation Crossbow

In 1957 Emeric Pressburger wrote a true-life spy film with his Archers partner Michael Powell called Ill Met By Moonlight. Two English agents penetrate German security on Crete, kidnap the top Nazi general and spirit him away to Cairo. The daring espionage caper became famous, yet during their adventure the spies never fired a shot nor met any sexy females. They spent most of their time living with goats. Eight years later came the fantasies of the James Bond craze. In the tradition of Carl Foreman's The Guns of Navarone, Carlo Ponti's Operation Crossbow treats the allied effort to detect and forestall Germany's rocket program with a mix of patriotic fervor and 007-style exaggeration. The show isn't particularly good history, but it is exciting. Emeric Pressburger is one of the writers, using his alias Richard Imrie. Synopsis: Duncan Sandys (Richard Johnson) is assigned to determine if the Germans are building rocket weapons. Professor Lindemann (Trevor Howard) denies that such a thing is possible, but others such as General Boyd (John Mills) support the notion. In actuality, the German high command is working on three projects simultaneously: The V-1 'Buzz Bomb,' the V-2 rocket and a project called the V-10, an intercontinental ballistic missile. Spy volunteers John Curtis, Phil Bradley and Robert Henshaw (George Peppard, Jeremy Kemp and Tom Courtenay) pose as engineers from the occupied countries, conscripts working for the Nazis. Curtis runs into a sticky problem: The wife of the man he is impersonating (Sophia Loren) shows up at his hotel, wondering why Curtis is using her husband's name and passport. "You've got to find out about those rockets," orders a stern Winston Churchill, and a succession of earnest British strategists take drastic counter-measures against the V-1 base in Peenemünde. Experts spout exposition and make sober decisions in the face of a terrible threat. There obviously were numerous Allied efforts to learn more about secret German weapons programs, and Operation Crossbow shows the recruitment of a trio of dauntless young agents. George Peppard and Jeremy Kemp go about their business with a cavalier swagger while Tom Courtenay's meek Dutch sailor walks into danger with only good intentions on his side. The saboteurs don't know it, but a cunning German counter-spy is waiting to ferret them out. Operation Crossbow is a Carlo Ponti production. That explains why George Peppard's character shares a night of intrigue with a sexy Italian played by Ponti's wife Sophia Loren. Loren's romantic close-ups are gorgeous but her anachronistic hairstyle and eye makeup are jarring; it's as if Grace Kelly wandered into The Spy Who Came In From the Cold. Not only that, espionage film veteran Lili Palmer (Cloak and Dagger, The Counterfeit Traitor) makes a stronger impression. Of the entire cast, only Peppard, Loren and Palmer are given a real dramatic opportunity. The rest of the film sticks to straight espionage thriller mechanics. The episode dealing with the V-1 program can't help but flatter the Nazi rocket developers, who risk their lives working with cutting-edge technology. The Germans at Peenemünde kill several test pilots in the process of making their V-1 Buzz Bombs fly straight; director Michael Anderson uses dramatic angles for their funerals. We're treated to inspiring close-ups of Ace aviatrix Hannah Reitsch (Barbara Rütting) courageously riding the unpredictable rocket. Had the Germans won the war this amazing woman surely would have been the subject of many reverent biographies. Hannah Reitsch later flew into and out of Berlin when Hitler was pinned in his bunker, as seen in Hitler: The Last Ten Days and Downfall. The tension takes on a contemporary relevance when Hitler's scientists bombard London with sinister V-1s. Scooting along at 400 mph, the Buzz Bombs are too fast for easy interception and carry enough explosive to blow up several houses. Although associated with 'Nazi Terror,' the V-1's are primitive versions of our own modern cruise missiles. The later V-2 missiles fall so quickly from sub-orbit that they're almost undetectable. A V2 hit can take out the better part of a city block. For its finale the film swings into fantastic territory: The Germans have built a gigantic rocket lab and launching base deep below eighty feet of solid rock, a fortress that would be the envy of Ernst Stavro Blofeld. The historical V-10 is said to have advanced no farther than the planning stage, but Operation Crossbow pretends that the rocket is almost ready to launch ...to strike New York City! The last minute chaos and gunplay in the Nazi fortress resolves Operation Crossbow as a SuperSpy fantasy like Dr. No or the now obscure WW2 spy picture Sabotage Agent (The Adventures of Tartu). In that 1943 English film, Robert Donat single-handedly blows up a vast underground Nazi installation bigger than anything in Metropolis. The idea of grim storm troopers overseeing captive technicians in a secret factory is reminiscent also of 1957's Quatermass 2, right down to the machine gun battle finale. Fans partial to explosions will be pleased with George Peppard's last stand, even though some of the special effects are on the flimsy side. In keeping with the 60s trend in escapist war thrillers, Crossbow celebrates elite warriors accomplishing the impossible and 'turning the course of the war.' Civilians like Sophia Loren's unfortunate character matter little in this cold equation. In Sabotage Agent Loren's place is taken by a very young Glynis Johns, a downtrodden forced laborer. Sabotage emphasizes that the war is being fought to save unfortunate Europeans from tyranny. Crossbow is more concerned with glory and cool weaponry; even its heroes are expendable. Operation Crossbow shapes up as a commercial cut-and-paste job, with ample helpings of flag-waving, grim spy intrigue, fantastic action and a beautiful star for the poster. Every plot turn is underlined with bombastic musical chords from Ron Goodwin's retro score. Elliot Scott's elaborate sets are definitely meant to compete with Ken Adams' work for the James Bond films. Fans of British acting talent will enjoy the enormous cast. On view are Anthony Quayle (a formidable spymaster), an underused Richard Todd (a photo expert), Sylvia Syms and John Fraser (more photo experts), and Maurice Denham, Richard Wattis, Allan Cuthbertson and Charles Lloyd Pack (more boffins & officers). Patrick Wymark's Winston Churchill seems to be conducting the entire war while chain-smoking in dramatic light. Richard Johnson is the dry hero who relays information to the Prime Minister. The German characters speak subtitled German and are played by continentals: Helmut Dantine, Paul Henreid, Karel Stepanek, Anton Diffring -- and our old favorite Ferdy Mayne (Where Eagles Dare, The Fearless Vampire Killers). Warners' DVD of Operation Crossbow it's a perennially popular 'guy' film, like Ice Station Zebra. The enhanced 2.35:1 transfer is sharp and colorful and the lively 5.1 sound mix may have been derived from a six-track stereo original. A featurette from the time of release presents the wild story happenings as historic fact, and the trailer sells the tale with a non-stop montage of action scenes. The amusing original ad copy assures us that our fearless saboteurs possess 'licenses to kill.' Trevor Howard's annoying professor character becomes a man of mystery among the cluster of stars in the exaggerated key art painting, which also makes Lili Palmer look like an automobile hood ornament. For more information about Operation Crossbow, visit Warner Video. To order Operation Crossbow, go to TCM Shopping. by Glenn Erickson

He was arguably the most refined, and versatile of all English film stars in the history of British cinema. Sir John Mills, the Oscar®-winning actor whose film career spanned over 70 years, died on April 23 of natural causes in London. He was 97. Born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills in Norfolk, England on February 22, 1908. His father was a headmaster of a village school in Suffolk, where Mills was raised. After secondary school, he worked as a clerk in a corn merchant's office while acting in amateur dramatic societies. Ever ambitious, he relocated to London in 1928 to find more work as an actor. He took tap-dancing lessons and made his stage debut as a chorus boy in The Five O'Clock Girl at the London Hippodrome in 1929. Later that year, he joined an acting troupe that toured India and the Far East with a repertory of modern plays, musical comedies and Shakespeare. It was during this tour when he scored his big break - he was spotted by Noel Coward while in Singapore and promptly taken under the playwright's wing when he returned to London in 1931. On his return, he starred on the West End (London's Broadway), in Coward's Cavalcade and earned the lead in a production of Charley's Aunt. His song and dance talents came in handy for his film debut, an early British musical-comedy The Midshipmaid (1932). His biggest hits over the next few years would all fall into the genre of light comic-musicals: Britannia of Billingsgate (1933), Royal Cavalcade (1935), and Four Dark Hours(1937). He scored a his first big part as Robert Donat's student in the MGM backed production Mills went on to play Robert Donat's Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939). He developed some more heft to his acting credentials that same year when he made his debut at the celebrated Old Vic Theatre as Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream. He served briefly in the Navy, 1940-41, during World War II before receiving a medical discharge. When Mills returned to the screen, he began a great turn as the atypical sturdy, dignified Englishman ("English without tears" went the popular phrase of the day). He starred as a stalwart lead in a amazing string of hit films: In Which We Serve (1942), We Dive at Dawn (1943), This Happy Breed (1944), The Way to the Stars (1945), and Waterloo Road (1945). Although Mills was ever dependable, they did not show his breakout talents until he starred as Pip in David Lean's gorgeous adaptation of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations (1946). As the young orphan who morphs into a man of wealth and stature, Mills showed the depth as an actor by offering a finely modulated performance. By the late '40s, Mills was a bona fide star of British films, and over the next decade the strong roles kept coming: as the ill-fated Robert Falcon Scott in Scott of the Antarctic (1948); Bassett, the handy man who tries to help a troubled child (the brilliant John Howard Davies) of greedy, neglectful parents in the superb domestic drama The Rocking Horse Winner (1950); an overprotective father who gets trapped in a murder yarn in Mr. Denning Drives North (1952); a fine Willie Mossop in David Lean's Hobson's Choice (1954); an impressive "against-type" performance as a Russian peasant in War and Peace (1956); a sympathetic police inspector coaxing the trust of a juvenile (his daughter Hayley) who knows the facts of a murder case in the underappreciated Tiger Bay (1959); a rowdy Australian sheep shearer in Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (also 1959); and arguably his finest performance - a Best Actor award at the Venice Film Festival for a hard-as-nails army colonel who fears the loss of control over his regiment in Tunes of Glory (1960). The mid-60s saw an isolated effort as a film director: Gypsy Girl (which starred his other daughter Juliet - who would later find fame on US television in Nanny and the Professor (1970-72); and showed the development of Mills into a charming character actor: the working-class patriarch in the modest comedy The Family Way (starring Hayley as his daughter); and a terrific comic bit as a murderous Lord who tries to kill off his kin for the family inheritance in Bryan Forbes The Wrong Box (all 1966). By the '70s, his film work slowed considerably, but he was always worth watching: an Oscar winning performance as a mute villager in David Lean¿s study of the Irish troubles Ryan's Daughter (1970); as the influential General Herbert Kitchener Young Winston (1972); and as a driven oil driller in Oklahoma Crude (1973). With the exception of a small role in Sir Richard Attenborough's Ghandi (1982 - where he was credited as Sir John Mills after his knighthood in 1976), and a regrettable cameo in the deplorable Madonna comedy Who's That Girl (1987). Very little was seen of Mills until recent years, where the most memorable of his appearances included: Old Norway in Hamlet (1996); as the stern chairman opposite Rowan Atkinson in the hit comedy Bean (1997); and - in a daring final role for his proud career - a nonagenarian partygoing cocaine user in Stephen Fry's bawdy social satire Bright Young Things (2003)! Mills is survived by his wife of 64 years, the novelist and playwright Mary Hayley Bell; his daughters, Juliet and Hayley; son, John; and several grandchildren. by Michael T. Toole