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Not a single negative comment yet and this movie deserves worse. The first half has some interest, like the good cop bad cop routine of the Nazis, but scenes and characters are not much developed. Scenes are schematic, simply making plot points and moving on. As the movie goes on it gets worse. What exactly is happening, for example, when they infiltrate Holland? There's no clear idea of the mission, or what's at stake. Motives are standard, acting OK but nothing outstanding. War movie clichés stitched awkwardly together. Toward the end a Nazi--one of the original group of students who went wrong--is walking along a blasted road eating a biscuit and a starving boy asks him for food. Smirking, he throws the biscuit into a pool of black liquid in a ditch and walks on smiling. The boy picks up the biscuit, throws it down, and pulls a grenade from under his coat. Walks behind the outhouse where the Nazi is taking a crap and tosses the grenade in. Boom. If you go for that this is your movie. I call it writing without imagination. The Nazis were monstrous, yes, but for a better movie along these lines see Europa Europa, or Lucie Aubrac. Even better, Forbidden Games.

Richard Widmark's character is not easy to like and harder to respect. Why would Gene Tierney be so in love with him? That's a big problem, as is understanding exactly what's going on in the wrestling plot--and caring about it is hard, even with the admirable Gregorius. The son-father relationship of Gregorius with his son and with Widmark are both simply written by the writer, not made credible. On the whole, a rather artificial film, with some nice London atmosphere. You feel like in the world around these characters there might be something interesting going on, but it's not happening at the center of the film. So far, I've seen two good Dassin films, Thieves' Highway and the classic Rififi. Naked City, which some prefer to Thieves' Highway, seems to me thoroughly dated, while TH, despite its faults, remains a pleasure.