Codename: Emerald

It's April 1944. The Nazis are desperate to capture an "Overlord", the code name for the few Allies who knew the time and location of the planned D-Day invasion. The Nazis have a plant inside British intelligence. His code name is Emerald. It's Gus Lang (Ed Harris) who was recruited back in 1934. The British already know this and has him as their man. He gives the Nazis a boat transporting fake Overlords. Col. Peters (Patrick Stewart) gives them a boat full of sacrificial lambs and the Nazis narrow the focus on young American Lt. Andy Wheeler (Eric Stoltz).

I am not sure why Gus would return back to Paris. The movie gives the excuse that the British had tasked him to tracking down Emerald. It seems very unlikely that the spy hunter would go behind the lines to do it. The Brits would have different spy hunters for the two sides of the line. It would be more reasonable for a new character to do the interrogation trap. Ok! Forget all that. This is a rather static drama inside the prison. Outside the prison, he wouldn't make contact with the resistance. That would be too risky with little to gain. A lot of this feels wrong. No matter which way Gus Lang goes. There is some flaw in the logic.

Like certain other film genres, such as the Western, the musical and the historical epic, the Second World War film was out of favour in the eighties. There were occasional exceptions, but apart from John Boorman's "Hope and Glory", which concentrated on the British Home Front rather than military action, I cannot think of any really great examples from the decade. There were to be no eighties equivalents of "The Dambusters" or "The Great Escape".

The central idea of "Code Name: Emerald" owes something to "Where Eagles Dare". An American officer with knowledge of the invasion plan for the D-Day landings has been captured by the Nazis. (In "Where Eagles Dare" the captured man was a general; here he is a lieutenant. Were such junior officers in fact entrusted with such vitally important secret knowledge?) In the earlier film, a group of commandos were sent to rescue the general from a redoubt in the Bavarian mountains. In "Code Name: Emerald", however, the Allies have a more subtle plan. Gus Lang, an American officer in Britain, is acting as a double agent, pretending to be a traitor working for German intelligence, whereas in reality he is being used by the Americans to feed the Germans with false information. ("Emerald" is the code name given to him by his German handlers). Lang is sent to Paris, supposedly to defect to the German side, but with secret instructions to find out whether the captured officer, Lieutenant Andrew Wheeler, has revealed anything under German interrogation.

Like "Hope and Glory", "Code Name: Emerald" has little in the way of military action. It is essentially an espionage drama of the sort popular throughout the Cold War, but transferred to a wartime setting and with the Germans rather than the Russians as the villains. Like most such dramas, it has a complicated plot where the heroes never know whom they can trust and which of the other characters might turn out to be a double, or even a triple, agent. An added complication is that the villains do not know whom they can trust either. One of the Germans is secretly working for the British- but which one? What lifts the film above the level of the average war film, or for that matter the average spy drama, is the depth of characterisation. Unusually, the German characters are not all stereotyped as one-dimensional villains. Admittedly, Helmut Berger's Ritter is a Nazi fanatic, but Horst Buchholz's Hoffman seems charming and urbane and Max von Sydow's Brausch is a Prussian officer of the old school, who loves the Fatherland but has little time for its rulers. That fine actor Ed Harris makes Lang a believable individual rather than a mere plot device. (Harris has been able to perform a similar service for other otherwise mundane thrillers, such as "The Rock", in which he not only makes the villain, General Hummel, believable, but also makes his motives, in part, understandable).

There is nothing particularly deep or original about "Code Name: Emerald", but it is professionally produced and acted and makes for enjoyable watching. 7/10

Code Name: Emerald is an excellent espionage thriller involving a cool double-agent plot connected to the D-Day landing. It's expertly helmed by Jonathan Sanger and shot in beautiful Paris starring A-list actors.

It also offers proof that American movie-goers are mentally defective. Check out the domestic box office receipts for September 1985.

Code Name Emerald - starring arguably the greatest actor of all time, Max Von Sydow - and also starring international stud Horst Bucholz and American stud Ed Harris, placed 10th for the month, taking in $561,000.

Now look what placed No. 2: Invasion USA starring noted thespian Chuck Norris. It hauled in a cool $17.5M. Do I have have to include the plot synposis?: "A one-man army comes to the rescue when the United States are invaded by communists."

Jeezus that's depressing.

Ed Harris is double agent Gus Lang in Code Name: Emerald, from 1985, directed by Jonathan Sanger.

This is another, let's lie to the Axis about where the Allies will land on D-Day and when D-Day will actually happen.

The Germans want an "Overlord," an officer with details of D-Day. The Germans capture one, Wheeler (Eric Stolz), so Gus is sent to Paris to keep tabs on him, and also plant a false story about his health. He has a secret liaison among the German upper crust.

This is an okay film with a fantastic cast: besides Harris and Stolz, Max von Sydow, Helmet Berger, Horst Buchholz, and Patrick Stewart.

The ending is tense, but I felt parts of the film were slow. Worth seeing for the actors.

The problem of this film, like of many others of the same kind, is, that the further away in time you get from the second world war, the more the plot and the film must be almost painfully discernible as contrived and artificial. Reconstructing reality must be more difficult and appear less convincing the further in time from the reality exhibited you get.

This is a very good story and very intelligent plot, the actors are all superb, especially Ed Harris, here young and fresh with many great roles ahead of him, and Max von Sydow as the honest German officer. Also Horst Bucholz is doing well like all the others, and of course Eric Stoltz as the prisoner. Helmut Berger adds an appropriate portion of nastiness as a very convincing fanatical German Nazi, in some ways he makes the deepest impression in his radiance of constant extreme but well controlled menace, and Cyrielle Clair provides the necessary female bit.

In spite of the obvious artificial construction of the plot and story, it is well worth seeing and rewarding indeed for those in chase of excitement, and for those who love Paris. It is all filmed in Paris and France.