Operation Crossbow (film)
| Operation Crossbow | |
|---|---|
theatrical film poster by Frank McCarthy
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| Directed by | Michael Anderson |
| Produced by | Carlo Ponti |
| Screenplay by |
Emeric Pressburger Derry Quinn Ray Rigby |
| Story by | Duilio Coletti and Vittoriano Petrilli |
| Starring |
Sophia Loren George Peppard Trevor Howard John Mills Richard Johnson Tom Courtenay |
| Music by | Ron Goodwin |
| Cinematography | Erwin Hillier |
| Edited by | Ernest Walter |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
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Release date
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March 1965 (UK) |
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Running time
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115 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | German English |
| Box office | $3,700,000 (US/ Canada rentals) |
Operation Crossbow, later re-released as The Great Spy Mission, is a 1965 British spy thriller and Second World War film about Operation Crossbow (1943−1945). It was directed by Michael Anderson and written by Emeric Pressburger, under the pseudonym "Richard Imrie", Derry Quinn and Ray Rigby from a story from Duilio Coletti and Vittoriano Petrilli. It was filmed at MGM-British Studios.
The film is a highly fictionalised account of the real-life Operation Crossbow, made with a large cast of the time's popular film stars, but it does touch on the main aspects of the operation. The scenes alternate between Nazi German developments of the V-1 flying bomb and V-2 rocket, with a German cast speaking their own language, and British Intelligence and its agents who are attempting to defend against the threats.
From 1943, Nazi Germany started working on terror weapons, the V-1 flying bomb and V-2 rocket while British Intelligence learns about a new secret weapon. Technical problems with the V-1 lead the Germans to create a manned version to ascertain the flight problems of the rocket but all the test pilots are killed flying it. Aviator Hanna Reitsch (Barbara Rütting) successfully flies and lands the V-1 prototype, discovering the problem (mechanical shifting of the rocket's weight and change of speed) and how to solve it, which leads to the mass production of the V-1.
Winston Churchill (Patrick Wymark) is concerned about rumours of a German flying bomb and orders Duncan Sandys, his son-in-law (Richard Johnson), one of his ministers, to investigate. Sandys is convinced by intelligence and photo-reconnaissance reports that the weapons exist, but sceptical scientific advisor Professor Lindemann (Trevor Howard) dismisses the reports as extremely fanciful (ultimately he is proved wrong when V-1s start falling on London a year later in June 1944). Bomber Command launches a raid on Peenemünde on 17/18 August 1943 to destroy the factory producing them.
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Wikipedia