Today’s movie is a wartime action
film with a scene that happens on February 20. Watch it tonight and enjoy.
THE HEROES OF TELEMARK
Nilssen, director of the Norsk
Hydro plant in German occupied Norway is ordered to increase the facilities
production of heavy water by 400%. Nilssen sends a photo through the Norwegian
Resistance to Dr Rolf Pedersen, a physicist at the University of Oslo. As a
result the Resistance hijacks a coastal steamer to take Pedersen to England
through the mine-infested North Sea. The data that Pedersen brings convinces
the Allies that Germany is trying to make an atomic bomb. Pedersen and Knut
Straud, his Resistance minder parachute back into Norway to see if a commando
raid on the factory is possible, as Allied HQ says the factory must be
destroyed. The pair ends up coincidentally at the home of Pedersen’s ex-wife.
Pedersen concludes a commando raid is out of the question, but Straud opposes
bombing, as it would cause too many civilian casualties. London decides on a
commando raid. When a hunter, Jensen stumbles across the advance team they keep
him a prisoner. The plane bringing in
the 50 British commandoes crashes. Straud decides to proceed with the raid
using the ten-man advance team. They
tie up Jensen and leave him behind. The team rappels down a cliff and enters
the factory. They blow up the equipment for making heavy water and escape from
the factory. Jensen, who turns out to be a traitor helps the Germans try to
track down the escaping team. Pedersen ends up having to pose as a pro-German
Norwegian to avoid arrest, but is accidentally exposed. He makes a death
defying escape off of a bus. Pedersen learns the Nazis have restored full
production, but a bomber raid to destroy the factory fails. The Nazis plan to
ship the heavy water they have extracted to Germany. Pedersen and Straud plant
a bomb on the ferry that will transport the water for part of its journey. On
February 20, 1944 after Pedersen sees a woman he knows and her child get on the
ferry he gets on board also. He gets all the children onboard into a lifeboat
on a pretext, so when the bomb goes off they are saved. The ferry and its cargo
of heavy water sink to the bottom of a very deep lake. [1:59:25 to 2:09:21]
An exciting film. However it
introduces unnecessary elements of melodrama. Would have been better as purely
an action film.
2194 Days of War ed. by Cesare Salmaggi and Alfredo
Pallavisini (Gallery Books, New
York, 1977) at page 492 gives the
date the ferry was sunk.
Producer - Benjamin Fisz
Director - Anthony Mann
Screenplay - Ben Barzman and Ivan Moffat
Runtime – 2 hours 11 minutes
Released – November 23, 1965
Cast –
Kirk Douglas as Dr Rolf Pedersen
Richard Harris as Knut Straud
Ulla Jacobsson as Anna Pedersen
Michael Redgrave as Uncle
David Weston as Arne
Sebastian Breaks as Gunnar
John Golightly as Freddy
Alan Howard as Oli
Patrick Jordan as Henrik
William Marlowe as Claus
Brook Williams as Einar
Maurice Denham as Doctor
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