From WWII Britain, a neatly made French Resistance thriller (with General De Gaulle's imprimatur!) that claims to based on a True Story. And it is! Just not French. It’s Czech; specifically, the assassination in Prague of Bohemia/Moravia’s Nazi Reichsprotector Reinhard Heydrich and the brutal consequences/retaliation by the Nazis. Some grab, no? Particularly since that story was about to hit American screens via Fritz Lang/Bertold Brecht’s HANGMEN ALSO DIE! * Be that as it may, what we have here is more than decent melodrama, assuming you can deal with veddy, veddy Brits playing Frenchies (John Clements, Godfrey Tearle) trying to get info across to England before the Nazis figure out their plan. Clements also needs to figure out whose side two women are on, patriotic café owner Judy Kelly and Mayor’s daughter Greta Gynt. Is one a Nazi collaborator or merely playing at it while secretly helping the underground? Choppy direction from George King proves but a modest obstacle, and the tight budget likely helps the film's claustrophobic quotient, along with Otto Heller’s exceptionally well shadowed cinematography. A combination of ‘Quota-Quickie’ gumption and wartime can-do spirit pulls it thru.
DOUBLE-BILL: As mentioned above, HANGMEN ALSO DIE!/’43. OR: For more French Resistance budget surprises, MADAME PIMPERNEL (AKA: PARIS UNDERGROUND)/’45 with Constance Bennett.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Adding to the confusion, the original British title, TOMORROW WE LIVE, had just been used by low-budget specialist Edgar G. Ulmer in 1942; and before that by pro-Fascist Brit Oswald Morris for a collection of essays by various ultra-right authors.
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