Undercover

This Ealing film about the exploits of Yugoslav partisans fighting the occupying Nazis provides 90minutes or so of harmless entertainment. Filmed, I believe in Wales, where the mountains are not that high it's most notable feature for me is that it is Stanley Baker's first film appearance. 16 years old at the time he plays a schoolboy who aspires to be a guerrilla along with several of his schoolmates. He has a decent amount of screen time and lines. The plot is pretty much standard for this type of film; two brothers one a fighter, the other an apparent (although not to the audience) collaborator.There is sabotage, general mayhem and executions which fit nicely and keep the film moving along apace.Certainly worth watching if you get a chance to see it.

Never was the proud declaration at the end beneath a fluttering Union Jack that this was "A British Picture" more apt. Described by David Quinlan as "Probably Ealing's least convincing war film", this contrives to do for the Yugoslavs what 'Hangman Also Die' did for the Czechs.

Full of adorable little models and British actors as comic-book Germans clicking their heels and strong-arming women and children, their victims played by slavic types like Niall MacGinnis when he still had a full head of hair, Finlay Currie, Michael Wilding and Tom Walls (the latter grumbling at his son that "Guerrillas were different in my day!").

Sunny Wales masqueraded as Central Europe, which presumably explains the presence of a fifteen year-old Stanley Baker, one of the few cast members who doesn't have an English accent.

Ealing Studios in Great Britain released Undercover on July 27, 1943 on the guerrilla resistance movement in Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. Undercover was re-released by Columbia Pictures on September 14, 1944 in the United States under the title Underground Guerrillas. The movie was originally entitled Chetnik and was to document the Yugoslav Chetnik resistance movement headed by Draza Mihailovich. Because the movie was released when British support for Mihailovich was waning, however, the film was re-edited and references to Mihailovich and the Chetniks were deleted. The movie is invaluable, nevertheless, as a cinematic account of the resistance movement headed by Draza Mihailovich and the Chetnik guerrillas and how the perception of their role changed.

John Clements starred as Captain Milosh Petrovitch, a Serbian guerrilla resistance leader in German-occupied Yugoslavia, modeled closely on Draza Mihailovich. Mary Morris played Anna Petrovitch, his wife. Stephen Murray played Milosh Petrovitch's brother, Stephan Petrovitch, modeled on Milosh Sekulich, a Serbian physician who had worked at the Municipal Hospital in Belgrade from 1935 to 1941 and who fled to London to turn over a memorandum that documented the genocide committed against Serbs by Croats and Bosnian Muslims in the Ustasha NDH Nazi-allied state.

Milosh Petrovitch forms a guerrilla army in the mountains of Serbia attacking German troops and blowing up bridges and mountain tunnels. Stephan Petrovitch goes undercover and pretends to be a quisling and collaborator in order to obtain information from the German forces to pass along to the guerrillas. The climactic scene is a pitched battle between Serbian guerrillas and German troops. The Serbian guerrillas defeat the German troops and infiltrate the mountains from where they plan future attacks against Axis troops.

Michael Wilding plays Constantine, one of the Serbian guerrillas. Stanley Baker, in his first movie role at the age of fourteen, plays a Serbian student, Petar. Robert Harris plays German officer Colonel Brock, who orders the execution of six Serbian schoolchildren by a firing squad for resisting the Nazi occupation of Serbia. Academy Award nominated screenwriter John Dighton co-wrote the screenplay.

Undercover remains an important World War II movie on the resistance movement in Yugoslavia and in Serbia. The movie shows how the perception of the role of Draza Mihailovich and the Chetnik guerrillas in the resistance movement was altered and manipulated to reflect and to accommodate the political machinations and calculations of that time. Nevertheless, Undercover is an invaluable film account of the Yugoslavian resistance movement led by Draza Mihalovich and the Chetnik guerrillas, even though presented in a generic and fictionalized account.

John Clements and Stephen Murray are quite efficient in this wartime story of the Yugoslav resistance. Made in 1943, at the height of the conflict when their country was firmly under the Nazi jackboot, it falls to brothers "Milos" and "Dr. Stephan" - who do not agree on how best to resist - to try to thwart the ambitions of Godfrey Tearle's rather odious "Gen. Von Staengel" and his nasty henchman "Col. Brock" (Robert Harris). The production is basic but as this is essentially a piece of WWII propaganda that doesn't really matter - the message of the selfless and determined freedom fighters struggling to survive is front and centre of this George Slocombe story. It features a solid cast in support with some familiar faces - Niall MacGinnes and Michael Wilding amongst them, and Sergei Nolbandov manages to create quite a potent sense of menace as the sacrificial denouement looms. Rarely seen nowadays, and not a great film - but still, it's an effectively told story of bravery and courage that is worth a look.

Films regarding WWII that were actually made during the war have an extra dimension due to the final outcome being unknown. Considering that it's eighty years old it remains impressively well made with, for the time, convincing special effects. A nice group of nasty Nazis to dislike and plenty of brave partizans to root for. I'm a fan of Stanley Baker but I failed to recognise him in this film. It must have been very popular at the time of release and it is still very much well worth watching now. I saw it under the shorter title "Underground". Great acting all round except for the chief Nazi who was unconvincing.