Operation: Daybreak (1975)

Director:

Lewis Gilbert

Writers:

Alan Burgess (novel)
Ronald Harwood (writer)

Release Date:

5 March 1976 (Sweden)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama | War

Tagline:

A hit-and-run operation with no place to run.

Plot:

In 1942 Czechoslovakia, SS-General Reinhard Heydrich is appointed to become the Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia...

Plot Keywords:

WWII | SS | Czechoslovakian History | Sergeant | Based On True Story

Cast

Timothy Bottoms	...	Sgt. Jan Kubis
Martin Shaw	...	Sgt. Karel Curda
Joss Ackland	...	Janák
Nicola Pagett	...	Anna
Anthony Andrews	...	Sgt. Jozef Gabcík
Anton Diffring	...	Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich
Carl Duering	...	Karl Frank, Gestapo Chief
Cyril Shaps	...	Father Petrek
Diana Coupland	...	Aunt Marie Moravcová
Ronald Radd	...	Karel Moravec
Kim Fortune	...	Ata Moravec
Pavla Matéjuvská	...	Jindri^Úka Moravcová
Ray Smith	...	Hájek
George Sewell	...	Heinz Panwitz, Chief Investigator
Reinhard Kolldehoff	...	Fleischer, Gestapo

Also Known As:

Operation Daybreak (International: English title) (alternative spelling)
Seven Met at Daybreak
The Price of Freedom (USA) (reissue title)

Runtime:

118 min

Country:

USA | Czechoslovakia | Yugoslavia

Language:

English | German

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Netherlands:16 | Norway:16 (video release) | Finland:K-16 | Norway:18 (1976) | Sweden:15 | USA:PG

Filming Locations:

Prague, Czech Republic

Company:

American Allied Pictures

Trivia:

Since the film was set in the Czech republic, the filmmakers made use of Czech army equipment such as OT81 half tracks which are very similar to their war time predecessor, the German Sdkfz 251/1.

Goofs:

Factual errors: Heydrich wears incorrect rank insignia throughout the entire film. Heydrich's rank, that of Obergruppenfuhrer (General), was denoted by a three leaf collar patch with two pips. Heydrich instead wears a three leaf patch with one pip which was the insignia for Gruppenfuhrer, or a Lieutenant General.

Quotes:

[Discussing the plan to assassinate Heydrich]
Janak: What do you think, Jan?
Jan Kubis: [pointing to a map] : There's only one place - here. We kill him there as he comes around Holesovice Junction.
Anna: But he's heavily guarded all the time!
Jan Kubis: He slows down!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in In the Shadow of Memory (1999)

This is a seemingly accurate telling of the events around the assassination of Heydrich.

This detailed account of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in 1942, and the tragic aftermath, is likely about as accurate as any dramatic film is likely to be on the subject. The Nazis took an appallingly vicious revenge, and this film is a compelling, somewhat flawed, saga of the great tragedy that is war and conquest. Was the killing of Heydrich, the "Hangman" to the Czechs, really necessary, considering the consequences? It must have seemed so to the British brass and the willing Czech volunteers, but one wonders what the completely uninvolved victims in Lidice may have thought. Viewed as part of the overall slaughter of millions in the course of WW2, these were small numbers of victims, but is even one death negligible? Did Heydrich's removal shorten the war at all? You will have to find your own answers.

As a cinematic action film, this is not an especially inspired production. The story of the parachuting in from British RAF planes of an assassination team proceeds rather slowly until the final battle at the church where the seven partisans were hiding. The German efforts to dislodge them are shown in a detail that may owe something to extrapolation from the facts. Who knows? In any case this is the exciting part of the film. As shown the seven wiped out simply hordes of attacking Germans before the last two took their own lives. There is no question but that in reality the partisans put up quite a fight. They would have had no incentive to surrender meekly to Nazi "mercy".

Acting, except for the very convincing portrayal of Heydrich by Anton Diffring, is generally lackluster, with a few exceptions, and the editing can only be described as choppy. The language convention may seem a tad strange. Conversations that would obviously have been in Czech, are given in English. Conversations in German, occur in German, without subtitles. If you aren't fluent in German, you may miss some nuances. Since few of the cast are Czechs, there is not much slavic flavor evident. Who knows, this may enhance the more universal message that "war is hell". Oh, and did Gabcik and Kubis really take their own lives at the end?