Decision Before Dawn is a 1951 American war film directed by Anatole Litvak, starring Richard Basehart, Oskar Werner, and Hans Christian Blech. It tells the story of the American Army's using potentially unreliable German prisoners of war to gather intelligence in the closing days of World War II. The film was adapted by Jack Rollens (uncredited) and Peter Viertel from the novel Call It Treason by George Howe.
The cities of Würzburg, Nuremberg, and Mannheim where some of the picture was shot were warned via newspaper and radio announcements when battle scenes, some of which were overseen by the U.S. Air Force, were to be filmed.[2]
Plot[edit]
By late 1944, it is obvious that the Germans will lose the war. American Colonel Devlin (Gary Merrill) leads a military intelligence unit that recruits German prisoners of war to spy on their former comrades. "Tiger" (Hans Christian Blech), a cynical, older thief and ex-circus worker, is willing to work for the winning side. On the other hand, "Happy" (Oskar Werner) is a young idealist who volunteers to spy after his friend is killed by fanatical fellow prisoners for voicing doubts about the war's outcome. Monique (Dominique Blanchar) trains Happy and the others in espionage techniques; she takes a liking to the young man despite her hatred for Germans.
One day, Devlin receives word that a German general is willing to negotiate the surrender of his entire corps. Naturally, this is given top priority; because of the importance of the mission, an American officer has to go along. Devlin selects Lieutenant Rennick (Richard Basehart), a newcomer who distrusts the German turncoats. Tiger is chosen because he is the only one who knows the area, but he is under suspicion after returning from his last mission without his teammate. Happy is assigned the related task of locating the 11th Panzer Corps, which might oppose the wholesale defection. They parachute out of the same plane into Germany, then split up.
In the course of his search on bus and train rides, in guest houses and taverns, and in military convoys braving Allied air raids, Happy encounters Germans with differing attitudes towards the war, some still defiant, such as Waffen-SS courier Scholtz (Wilfred Seyferth), and some resigned, like the young war widow Hilde (Hildegard Knef). Happy accomplishes his mission by a stroke of luck. Posing as a medic returning to his unit, he is commandeered to stay and treat Oberst von Ecker (O.E. Hasse), the commander of the 11th Panzer, at his castle headquarters. In a dramatic scene, Von Ecker cruelly orders the execution of a loyal officer who had deserted to visit and help his bombed-out family. Happy has an opportunity to inject von Ecker with a lethal overdose of heart medicine before he signs the man's death warrant, but does not do so.
Afterwards, Happy narrowly escapes being captured by the Gestapo. He makes his way to the safe house in the ruins of the heavily bombed Mannheim, where the other two agents are hiding out. Meanwhile, Tiger and Rennick have learned that the general they were to contact was supposedly injured, but the hospital where he has been taken is under SS guard; without him, the other German officers cannot and will not surrender to the Allies. Their radio is knocked out, so Happy, Tiger, and Rennick are forced to try to swim across the heavily defended Rhine River to get to the American lines with the vital information. At the last moment, Tiger loses his nerve and runs away, forcing Rennick to shoot him. He and Happy then swim to an island in the middle of the river. When they start for the other shore, they are spotted by the German defenders. Happy creates a diversion, is captured and executed as a deserter, but his sacrifice enables the lieutenant to make it to safety, with a changed attitude about some Germans.
Decision Before Dawn (1951)
To one degree or another, Germany will forever wrestle with the moral collapse that occurred during Adolf Hitler's reign of terror. World War II-based movies did little, at least in the immediate aftermath of the War, to alleviate any lingering sense of guilt, or to change the rest of the world's inaccurate assumption that all German citizens were in agreement with the reprehensible attitudes and tactics of the Third Reich. Anatole Litvak's powerful examination of the couragDecision Before Dawn is a minor landmark in movie history, in that it was one of the first non-German productions to treat World War II-era Germans as something more than bloodthirsty combatants who all blindly followed Hitler's whims. The movie went into production just five years after World War II ended, so the German population's physical and psychic wounds were still quite fresh. In fact, the film was originally going to be called Legion of the Damned; the producers even received special permission from the MPAA/PCA to use a profanity in their title. But this caused a minor uproar in Germany, where the prevailing feeling was that the negative title referred to the country's entire population. Although he was disappointed by the misconception, Litvak finally decided to call the picture Decision Before Dawn to appease the masses.e inherent in dissent, Decision Before Dawn (1951), is the exception that proves the rule.
Despite the general misunderstandings, all evidence suggests that Litvak was anything but insensitive to the feelings of the German people while making the picture. He was even sure to pay a visit to the parents of the actual soldier who inspired the character of Cpl. Maurer. The soldier's parents told Litvak they were disappointed the Americans didn't treat them more honorably after the War, given their son's courage in serving as a spy. Surely, the dignified portrayal of Maurer in Decision Before Dawn met with their approval. One hopes that, in some small way, it eased their pain.
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Films directed by Anatole Litvak
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