Ill Met by Moonlight (1957)

User Rating:

6.5/10   

Directors:

Michael Powell
Emeric Pressburger

Writers:

W. Stanley Moss (adapted from the book: "Ill Met By Moonlight" The Wartime Diary in Crete of)
Michael Powell (written by) ...

Release Date:

July 1958 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Drama | War

Tagline:

One of the war's most dashing feats - they kidnapped a German General under the nose of his army.

Plot:

Led by British officers, partisans on Crete plan to kidnap the island's German commander and smuggle him to Cairo to embarrass the occupiers.

Plot Keywords:

Partisan | Crete | General | Occupied Nation | British Army

Cast

Dirk Bogarde	...	Maj. Patrick Leigh Fermor
Marius Goring	...	Major General Kreipe
David Oxley	...	Captain W. Stanley Moss, M.C.
Dimitri Andreas	...	Niko Soldan Emeris (as Demetri Andreas)
Cyril Cusack	...	Captain Sandy Rendel
Laurence Payne	...	Manoli
Wolfe Morris	...	George
Michael Gough	...	Andoni Zoidakis
John Cairney	...	Elias
Brian Worth	...	Stratis Saviolkis
Roland Bartrop	...	Micky Akoumianakis (as Rowland Bartrop)
George Eugeniou	...	Charis Zographakis
Paul Stassino	...	Yani Katsias
Adeeb Assaly	...	Zahari
Theo Moreas	...	Village Priest

Also Known As:

Intelligence Service
Night Ambush (USA)

Runtime:

104 min | USA:93 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English | Greek | German

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

UK:U | Australia:G | Finland:K-12 | USA:Unrated | Argentina:13

Filming Locations:

Alpes Maritimes, Alps, Italy

Company:

Rank Organisation, The

Trivia:

David McCallum's film debut.

Goofs:

Factual errors: The fully illuminated side of the moon always points toward the sun and hence at night it must be closer to the horizon than the other side, but when we first see the moon at night the illuminated side is higher.

Quotes:

Major General Kreipe: You're not going to leave me in the hands of these... Cretans?

The worst Powell/Pressburger film; it relies on stock plot devices

This must be the worst film by Powell and Pressburger. Powell describes its failures so well (in his autobiography MILLION DOLLAR MOVIE, page 364) that one need not dwell on all the details. The biggest problem is the flip, arch, schoolboy attitude of the characters. Powell complains of Bogarde, and claims that his performance effected the others, but the script and direction can't escape blame. One of the strong moments in the much more interesting non-fiction book this is based on is when the author realizes that it's not just fun and games but all for real when the general's driver gets killed. This moment of realization is not in the film. The travel across the island with the general is much too long, and there is no evolution to the relationship between the general and his captors, which makes it very tedious. Goring is a weak-sister general; perhaps Powell's first choice of Curt Jurgens could have made a difference. But the greatest disappointment is the use of hackneyed dramatic structure, particularly in the final scenes. Whether Powell and Pressburger were good or bad, they were always original. But the sequence where the general tries to bribe the boy is so familiarly presented that every step of its structure is obvious from the start. Ditto the scene when the general leaves his hat, where we're given a clue in the dialogue that the British are on to this ruse. The scene is baldly inserted to give some sense of danger to the trek. Then there's the "I don't know Morse code, do you?" routine at the end, which is lazily resolved by Cusak coming up out of nowhere with no particular explanation. These, and other tired script devices are taken, unadorned, straight out of Saturday matinée westerns. I can forgive the lack of pacing, but not this. The photography is stunning, even though the "on-location" isn't Crete. And despite Powell's disparaging remarks about VistaVision, it really enhances the black and white.