Operation Crossbow is part history and part spy thriller with a Sophia Loren cameo that somehow works. It’s interesting and fun and has more twists than . . . than something with an above average number of twists, you know, like a roller coaster or a really long extension cord that somebody threw in a box.
It may also have more veterans of World War II movies than any other–seriously. There may well be more here than in A Bridge too Far or The Longest Day. I’m not going to do the math because the relevant point is that there are a lot of familiar faces–it feels like a reunion. Paul Henreid (Casablanca, Never so Few), Trevor Howard (The Cockleshell Heroes, Von Ryan’s Express), John Mills (Dunkirk, In Which We Serve), Sylvia Syms (Ice Cold in Alex), Richard Todd (The Longest Day, The Dam Busters) and Anthony Quayle (Ice Cold in Alex, The Guns of Navarone) all play supporting roles. Harry Anderson (The Hill, Too Late the Hero) is somehow not in this movie, preventing the full Ice Cold in Alex reunion.
George Peppard (The Victors, Tobruk), Richard Johnson (Never so Few, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas), Tom Courtenay (King Rat, Private Potter) and Jeremy Kemp (A Bridge too Far) had shorter resumes when the film was made, but there are a lot of familiar faces in this movie.
Name the World War II movies these four were in.
Peppard is our hero, if the hero can show up a half hour into the story; he’s an American pilot who is dropped behind enemy lines and assumes the identity of a dead Dutch scientist in order to enter a German rocket factory. It’s a fun story; the first twist occurs right after he parachutes into Holland, so I won’t spoil any of them.
Seemingly the only actor without extensive World War II movie experience is top-billed Sophia Loren. Twist two or four, depending on what counts as a twist, involves her character. She may be a divisive character because she receives top billing for maybe two days’ work, and you could remove her from the movie with no serious harm to the overall story. If you’re angry because this seems like a bait and switch, that’s fair because it pretty much is a bait and switch. It is certainly misleading and probably dishonest to put her name above the title (see Richard Attenborough in Sea of Sand).
Fine. But the twist she is associated with is an interesting and entertaining one, and she does a fine job of acting. It’s a cool little subplot that adds even more entertaining twists. I kind of want to see more of her because I enjoy her story and performance, but it is probably just the right amount of Sophia Loren for this story.
Peppard and Loren have some nice moments–and isn’t this a lovely shot?
She’s not the only woman in the film; it highlights a number of strong and capable women. Lilli Palmer (Cloak and Dagger, The Counterfeit Traitor) plays a Dutch resistance agent, who helps guide us through three or four twists. Syms plays Constance Babington Smith, who was in charge of a section that interpreted aerial photographs and found the first signs of rockets at Pennemunde. She’s also one of the many actors playing historical figures who dominate the first act of the film.
The most interesting female character, or at least the most interesting presentation of a female character, is Barbara Rütting (The Last Bridge) as Hannah Reitsch, the German test pilot who was almost certainly a Nazi. She is clearly a hero in this movie; she is brave, caring and capable. She flies a manned version of a rocket, after four test pilots have already died doing so. Before the flight, she stands somberly in front of their graves, honoring their sacrifice. She solves the problem during her test flight, heroically enabling the Germans to begin production of a working rocket that will terrorize London. When she’s doing this the music swells. When she exits the rocket, some hug her while the music is triumphant.
Hanna! You’re a great hero of our glorious Fatherland!
This is one interesting aspect of the film. The first part is the history of the development of the German rocket program and British attempts to discover and destroy it. This part seems accurate and oddly evenhanded. It generally avoids demonizing the Germans, while notably avoiding mentioning Wernher von Braun, who worked on the rockets and was working at NASA at the time the movie was made.
One German gives a satisfyingly Naziesque speech: “London soon will stagger under the impact of 20,000 flying bombs. And that’s just the beginning. The rocket, gentlemen – let’s have the rocket now. And we can send every other weapon to the scrap heap! With the rocket in our hands, we will fulfill our historic mission: To be masters of the entire world!” For most of the first half of the movie, we follow the development of the rockets from both the British and German side, and there are heroes on both sides.
While Syms is a hero on the British side, Howard (The Way Ahead, The Battle of Britain) plays scientific advisor Professor Frederick Lindemann, who is a wrongheaded scientist who is wrong pretty much throughout the movie. Apparently he didn’t think liquid fuels would work and so was never prepared to believe a functioning rocket could be produced. He calls one rocket a balloon with certainty and nearly constantly reminds us he’s “a scientist,” up until the time rockets start flying over the channel.
Johnson plays Duncan Sandys, Winston Churchill’s son in law who headed a committee tasked with countering the German rocket program. He bravely ignores the wrongheaded scientist and also leads the anti-rocket defense.
Sandys instead listens to Babbington Smith and Wing Commander Kendall (Todd) who interpret the aerial photographs. This film makes me very curious about the use of aerial photographs—this movie and A Bridge Too Far. Actually A Bridge Too Far doesn’t make me as curious about it as this movie does. And Battle of the Bulge makes me angry about it, but this site seeks to be a Battle of the Bulge bashing free zone. Yet I have not deleted the preceding sentence.
This movie has three parts, the interesting history part, the cool spy story and a nearly interminable number of shots of rockets being launched against England part. It may actually be nearly interminable repetitions of the same shot of a rocket launching.
Maybe there are four parts–there’s also a comedic parachute training sequence because . . . comedy. It features Frank Foley, who was a parachute instructor, as a parachute instructor; it’s reasonably funny, he’s wonderfully deadpan, but feels like part of a longer training sequence that was cut down. Materials I’ve read suggest a great deal was cut out of the first part of the movie, which seems like a good idea because that gets us to the spy story more quickly.
George Peppard looking cool while holding an MP 40, which he actually reloads.
And the cool spy story is cool. There may be more twists in this movie than in Where Eagles Dare or The Guns of Navarone, and they are as entertaining in this movie and probably more believable, well some of them. Peppard, Kemp and Courtenay are the three spies, and they all have interesting bits. Some may find the shift from historical account to twisty spy thriller odd, but it works.
Recommendation
See Operation Crossbow; my local public library has a copy, so I haven’t bought one yet, but I may well, indeed. Did I mention there are a lot of plot twists? Like more twists than soft serve ice cream?