December 3, 2023

Set amidst the Nazi occupation of Paris, this film follows the perilous lives of those trying to balance their routine "public" lives with organising the resistance. Leading their efforts is "Dr. Marbel" (George Sanders) who manages to stay on decent enough terms with the brutish "Col. Pirosh" (Robert Lewis) by helping treat his soldiers. Not everyone knows of his more patriotic role, though, and he frequently earns the enmity of his compatriots.… read the rest.

Set amidst the Nazi occupation of Paris, this film follows the perilous lives of those trying to balance their routine "public" lives with organising the resistance. Leading their efforts is "Dr. Marbel" (George Sanders) who manages to stay on decent enough terms with the brutish "Col. Pirosh" (Robert Lewis) by helping treat his soldiers. Not everyone knows of his more patriotic role, though, and he frequently earns the enmity of his compatriots. "Blanchard" (Philip Dorn), meantime, has just returned from a period of incarceration and is pretty shell-shocked, his spirit broken and his nerves on edge. He tries to encourage a policy of co-operation - to stay alive. This causes ructions with the hot-headed "Georges" (Raymond Roe) whose tragic murder galvanises the locals just as the Allies land in Algiers. It's a bit wordy this, but Léonide Moguy does create a sense of the constant state of fear in which the population lived at the hands of their malevolent new masters. It's not a particularly notable effort from Sanders, but Dorn and firebrand Roe contrast well as people have to make almost impossible choices to keep themselves, and their families, from a potential firing squad. It's not really got an ending, more a work in progress and though perfectly watchable, isn't really very memorable.

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