Operation Crossbow
by Michael Anderson
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: George Peppard, John Mills, Richard Johnson, Sophia Loren, Trevor HowardDirector: Michael Anderson
Brand: Warner Brothers
Cinematographer: Erwin Hillier
Producer: Carlo Ponti
Writer: Derry Quinn
Writer: Duilio Coletti
Writer: Emeric Pressburger
Writer: Ray Rigby
Writer: Vittoriano Petrilli
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; German (Original Language); English (Subtitled); French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dubbed, Subtitled
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 115 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-12-19
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Reviews of Operation Crossbow
Movie Review: Some Gave All...
Summary: 4 Stars
1965's "Operation Crossbow" was one of a series of 1960's British films celebrating World War II, most of which seem to have shared the same casting call. "Operation Crossbow" is a better than average dramatization of the British effort to find and shut down Nazi Germany's production of the deadly V1 and V2 revenge weapons that devastated London in 1944 and 1945.
The story begins in mid-war, as the British receive intelligence of a secret rocket production effort in the Third Reich, and proceeds on parallel tracks. In London, scientists, politicians, and military personnel breathlessly shift the meager intelligence and plot their countermoves; on a more compelling track, Allied agents are dispatched into Germany to infiltrate the German rocket program. Three agents, an American, a Brit, and a Dutchman, are hastily selected, trained, and infiltrated into Germany. Two of the agents will make it to Peenemunde, site of rocket research and development, to execute a desperate attempt to stop the project.
"Operation Crossbow" did indifferent business in the theaters but its story of wartime sacrifice holds up well with time. The movie accurately portrays the debate in London over the meaning of the limited intelligence available on the rocket program. The extended screen time given to the infiltration of the agents captures the tense atmosphere of deceit, betrayal, and ruthless security inside Germany and occupied Europe. The special effects may show their age, but the images of Peenemunde's tight security and slave labor may be eye-opening for modern audiences. George Peppard, Jeremy Kemp, and Tom Courtenay are especially effective as the agents sent on an incredibly dangerous mission into Germany. Sophia Loren has a small but compelling role as the wife of a Dutch scientist.
"Operation Crossbow" is highly recommended as a tough-minded portrayal of wartime choices and sacrifices that will be appreciated by fans of the World War II movie genre.
Summary of Operation Crossbow
A fearsome rumor reaches Britain's World War II command. The Nazis are developing rocket technology that could rain death on London and, then, New York. Quickly, England develops a plan to send saboteurs into the sites manufacturing the rockets. Just moments after the carefully chosen commandos parachute into the drop zone, their pilot receives an urgent message. The mission may be compromised. Abort. Operation Crossbow is the partly fact-based tale of how that team succeeded against daunting odds. Michael Anderson (The Dam Busters, Logan's Run) directs, guiding a huge cast in a film that builds to a spectacular finale, yet never neglects war's unsparing personal costs. As a record of a wartime espionage incursion and as an intrigue-filled thriller, Operation Crossbow is on both counts Operation Accomplished.DVD Features:
Featurette:Vintage Featurette A Look Back at Crossbow
Theatrical Trailer
Operation Crossbow was one among many '60s films aiming, in the wake of The Guns of Navarone, to cash in on nostalgia for "the Good War" of 20 years earlier, plus snag a share of the spy-movie market stoked by James Bond. A decent-enough stiff-upper-lip thriller in its day, it's yet more enjoyable now. The nostalgia has deepened to include affectionate enjoyment of a fine, big cast now mostly departed, dependably hitting their marks in a jolly good yarn.
The tale begins around the midpoint of the war, with Hitler aspiring to hurl a second Blitz against London using "flying bombs" and rockets. The British War Office starts recruiting officers fluent in the necessary technical fields, as well as German, Dutch, and/or French--the languages of the Nazi-occupied countries from which the Germans are recruiting technical personnel. The screenplay follows two tracks: the Germans' progress with their new aerial weaponry, and the progress of the Allied infiltrators--chiefly Yank George Peppard, chirpy Englishman Jeremy Kemp, and Dutchman Tom Courtenay--sent to penetrate the V2 project.
Despite the resemblance between the Navarone caves and the underground V2 launch center, Crossbow is something of an anti-Navarone. Its heroes are resolutely small-scale, and the mission is fraught with more opportunities for horrible miscues and moral-ethical murkiness than commando derring-do. The most memorable, indeed disturbing, part of the film involves Sophia Loren as the apolitical wife of a collaborator she doesn't know has been killed (and his identity assumed by Peppard). John Mills and Trevor Howard are deliciously deadpan trading war-council flapdoodle at the highest echelon, and Anthony Quayle (the spiritual leader of the Navarone mission) does yeoman service in a tricky role. Time--or rather, the transfer to video--has also been kind to the film's thin, overlit Metrocolor and last-reel special effects, which looked feebler on theater screens. The writers include Michael Powell's longtime partner Emeric Pressburger (under the pseudonym Richard Imrie). --Richard T. Jameson
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