Information
- BFI identifier40218
- Date1965 (Copyright)
1965-08 (Release) - Production countryUnited Kingdom, Italy, USA
- Production company
- SynopsisWar adventure. In 1943, during the Second World War, Nazi Germany develops pilotless rockets, the V-2, that can be launched from mobile bases to strike London with great devastation. They are also working on a V-10 with an atomic warhead. Getting an inkling of these plots, Churchill tasks Duncan Sandys to investigate and foil them. Sandys assesses the experts' opinions of what is seen in RAF recconnaisance photographs of the Germans' bases, and decides to have General Boyd recruit some trustworthy engineers who speak fluent German, to be sent into the Nazis' underground bunker, to report back on the progress of the rockets and destroy them if need be. After an arduous period of recruitment and training, Lieutenant John Curtis, Robert Henshaw and Phil Bradley go behind enemy lines, with the identity papers of certain real engineers they bear some resemblance to, in a bid to gain access to the bunker. Curtis has to share a hotel room with the real widow of the man he is posing as, and alongside the hotel owner Frieda, has to decide whether she can be trusted not to spill his secret to the Germans as she takes her children away to Italy. Henshaw is apprehended because the man he is posing as stands accused of murder; he faces a terrible dilemma, apparently doomed whether he sticks to his false identity or comes clean about being a British agent. Those who make it into the bunker work stealthily to dismantle the Germans' plans, but success will ultimately depend on whether they can get a signal out of the mountain to show the Allied bomber aircraft where to attack. (Synopsis)
- Genre
- Subject
- CreditsDirected by: Michael Anderson
©/Production Company: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer British Studios
[Production Company]: Carlo Ponti Cinematografica
view all - CastSophia Loren (Nora)
George Peppard (Lt John Curtis)
Trevor Howard (Professor Lindemann)
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Title
Operation Crossbow (Original)
The Great Spy Mission (Alternative)
Code Name: Operation Crossbow (Alternative)
Operazione Crossbow (Alternative)
EIDR identifier
10.5240/366E-2AFD-D705-1B5F-543B-ECategory
FictionThis work is included in the BFI Filmography.
- Collections
- Film / Video
35mm Colour Positive - Safety - Combined - Viewing
35mm Colour Positive - Safety - Combined - Viewing
view all - Scripts / DocumentsScript - Original story: Based on a story by Duilio Coletti and Vittoriano Petrilli - SCR-13629
Ephemera: publicity - PBS-40218
See FILM PROGRAMMES List. Small pressbook held.
view all - StillsPhotograph: film still - Landscape - SPD-2907703
Photograph: film still - Landscape - SPD-2907704
Photograph: film still - Landscape - SPD-2907705
Photograph: film still - Landscape - SPD-2907706
Photograph: film still - Portrait - SPD-2907707
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- +Operation Crossbow
Work - 40218 - 1965 (Copyright)
United Kingdom - Film - Fiction
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