Sept hommes à l'aube

Operation Daybreak is an excellent film, I first saw it about 17 years ago and have since watched it several times. The plot is pretty much as it happened, save for some artistic licence with the tear-jerking finale, in real life Kubis(Bottoms) was killed in the prayer loft prior to Gabcik's(Andrew's) suicide. If you go to Prague you may want to check out the Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius on Resslova,near Karlova Nam(Charles Square)Metro station,it's the church in the film and the crypt now houses a museum dedicated to the memory of the Czech peoples suffering at the hands of the Nazi's and Heydrich's assassination. Over the river in Kobylisy is the site of the assassination, two nearby streets have since been named Gabcikova and Kubisova in honour of the assassins.

SS General Reinhard Heydrich (Anton Diffring) was assassinated by Czech members of the British forces in 1942 and this well made film seeks to convey their story.

Well crafted, Lewis Gilbert's film takes an understated approach allowing the story to tell itself. It's a powerful story and doesn't need embellishing, so the film benefits accordingly. However, certain touches do add to the emotion of the piece, such as a younger sister searching for her brother at a time of danger, but being unable to find him. It's a moving scene in a moving film.

The cast are universally excellent. Timothy Bottoms and Anthony Andrews do well in straight forward roles, and Martin Shaw impresses in his more challenging role as Karel Curda. Anton Diffring does his Nazi impression to perfection.

There may be one or two small changes to the story but this is a film, and not a documentary. Highly recommended.

I first saw this movie back in 1976 when HBO, I believe, was making a run of it. It was a riveting movie I never forgot; I taped it from network TV about 12 years ago, and I recently started watching it again. Next I ordered the VHS tape, which arrived today and it is excellent, including quite a few scenes that the network version omits. The only problem is, as one viewer points out, is that in this version there is no subtitles, so you miss some of the dialog in the parts that are spoken in German. (The network version includes the subtitles, but is missing some scenes). The sound quality on the prerecorded VHS version is quite good if played back on a VHS hi-fi deck with a good sound system. I wish this movie were available on DVD! If anyone hears of it becoming available on DVD, please let me know! Hopefully a future DVD release will address the subtitle problem. It is indeed surprising how little attention this movie got. I even ordered a couple of books on Heydrich from Amazon, as well as the novel "Seven men at Daybreak" on which the movie is based. I find that the movie is nearly completely accurate. An excellent movie that anyone interested in history should see at least once.

Yes the music does date the film (were ARP synthesisers ever a good thing) but does that matter? No!!

Some poetic licence is taken with the facts (how Jan Kubis really died or the romance with Anna) but the portrayal of the occupiers, particularly Reichsprotektor Heydrich in no way understated how heinous these people were.

The depiction of siege at St Cyril's conveys a whole range of emotions as tension builds. The motivation of the resistance was unquestionably heroic at this part of the episode.

This is so much more than an action story. However the issues tend to be portrayed in a very polar black / white manner. Even Karel Chudra's motivation is shown in very clear terms (he is treated far less sympathetically in Czech history). It is unfortunate that the film did not have time to develop the political tension between London and the local resistance. How aware was London of the probability of reprisals following the assassination? Was it their intention that reprisals would do more to stir local opposition to the occupation than the assassination itself? Why did Karel Moravec later take his own life?

Overall, however, this is a film to see and for the most part it is very realistic. Visit Prague and leave the tourist traps to see St Cyril's - it looks just like the movie and is almost guaranteed to make you cry for all the victims of the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia.

If you like movies with lots of nasty Nazis and their regalia, old fashioned European train stations and exotic locales, you'll do well with Operation Daybreak. I suspect it takes a few dramatic liberties with the assassination of Reinhard Heidrich. But the basic facts are right and nobody claims it's a documentary. There are a couple of flaws. Would the allies drop agents into occupied Europe in daylight? Would the holed up assassins waste their ammunition so liberally. And would the Nazis send so many soldiers into the church basement with so many casualties when there would have been quicker and more effecient tactics. For that matter, would anyone survive multiple hand grenade explosions in an enclosed space such as the church crypt. And if they did, would they have had any hearing left? But at the end of the day --- or the film --- it's a pretty satisfying war movie, if a little on the long side, enhanced by some lovely cinematography. The brooding, low key, warm toned images of Prague, the creative angles and the pavement wet with morning rain are tremendously effective. Much better than your average war movie!