They Raid by Night (1942)

Written by CinemaSerf on June 26, 2022

You've really got to appreciate that this was made slap bang in the middle of WWII and so the budget was negligible, the time allocated probably even less - and so the end product is stagey with static backdrops; lots of War Office actuality and a very pedestrian script. All of that said, though, it is still quite a watchable tale of three commandos who are on mission to rescue a Norwegian general who has been captured by the Nazis. The casting is strange - Victor Varconi makes no attempt to play "Col. Otto von Ritter" with a German accent and June Duprez is a sort of pale imitation of Valerie Hobson as the Norwegian girl who has been betrayed just once too often. It's only just over an hour long, and taken in it's proper perspective is still quite an easy watch.