
“They stole a General under the noses of his 20,000 crack paratroops.”
Led by British officers, partisans on Crete plan to kidnap the island's German commander and smuggle him to Cairo to embarrass the occupiers.
Release Date: 1/31/1957
Runtime: 104 minutes
Languages: German, Greek, English
Directors: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
Budget: $0.2M
0Companies: The Rank Organisation, Vega Film
Countries: United Kingdom
CinemaSerf
Dirk Bogarde was good in these light-hearted but entertaining wartime dramas, and together here with Marius Goring manages to keep this moving along well. He's a British officer on Crete who comes up with a plan to kidnap the Nazi's commanding general "Kreipe" (Goring) together with the local resistance. Quite quickly, they discover that the general isn't that well protected. Getting him is one thing, keeping him and getting him off the island is going to be something completely different though as it turns out he's quite a shrewd customer. With the soldiers combing the island to find them, we have quite a few daring escapades as this game of cat and mouse pans out. There's plenty of charisma and mischief on offer here and the plot even leaves a little wriggle room for some integrity too. It's roots are in fact and the production is all pretty standard but it's quite niftily stitched together and I enjoyed it.
Major General Kreipe

Dirk Bogarde
Maj. Patrick Leigh Fermor aka "Philedem"

David Oxley
Capt. William Stanley "Bill" Moss

Marius Goring
Major General Kreipe

Dimitri Andreas
Niko Soldan Emeris

Cyril Cusack
Captain Sandy Rendel

Laurence Payne
Manoli
Wolfe Morris
George

Michael Gough
Andoni Zoidakis

John Cairney
Elias

Brian Worth

Roland Bartrop
Miki
George Eugeniou
1966

1967

2004

1966

1974

2008

1968

2001

1987

2008

2003

2006

2002