This is the original Heavy Water Battle-film about the sabotages done by the Allied to prevent Hitler-Germany getting the heavy water they needed to experiments in making the world's first atomic bomb. A French-Norwegian co-production made just after the events took place during the second world war. It's also quite unique that many of the saboteurs are playing themselves in this film about the famous sabotage action.
The film is a drama-documentary, very close up to the real events. In the start of the movie we are given a narrative introduction to the war as well as the reason for Allied and German interest in the heavy water produced only at the Vemork plant in the little industrial town Rjukan in the heart of southern Norway.
The film starts off with the French and German interest in getting the water, and the Allied forces managing to get the first little badge of water. But the Germans have the facility in Rjukan, and they command a new production of 5000 liters. In London they soon get this message from Norway, and starts the first plan of sabotaging the German plans.
This film is a quality production, and not only loved because many of the saboteurs play themselves. The two directors, Titus Vibe-Müller and Jean Dreville manges to tell the story in an interesting and exciting way, though a mix of drama and documentary was not very usual for cinema release back then, like it is on the Discovery channels now. Shown first in 1948, this was a few years before TV was commonly released on the public. t's fun to see that the real saboteurs are doing a great job acting. Claus Helberg is stealing a lot of the screen.
No doubt one of the most important Norwegian films ever, also because it was a huge success at the cinemas shortly after the war. It was also given a wide release across the world, and was successful in telling about this sabotages which has had a large following and interest after the war.
This is of course one of the most famous sabotage actions during the war, and there's several film-productions planned about this still. Both Michael Bay and Danny Boyle is involved with their own productions. This story is dramatized several times, and is just released as a six episode Norwegian TV-series which is sold all over the world. This TV-drama is also very close to the true events, and nothing like the large production The Heroes of Telemark from 1965. This is still quite entertaining. So is also the Canadian 1979-production A Man called Intrepid, which is both made as a feature and a TV-series.
