Service secret

Apparently, as the film "Zero Hour" inspired "Airplane!", this routine propaganda film, "Secret Mission" from 1942 was the inspiration for a British comedy, "allo, allo." The film stars James Mason, Roland Culver, Michael Wilding, and Karel Stepanek.

Mason plays Raoul, a member of the Free French Army (and his accent is appalling) who returns to France to get German intelligence. He brings with him Captain Red Gowan and Major Peter Garrett (Roland Culver and Hugh Williams). Raoul brings him to his family's home, which his sister Michele (Carla Lehmann) is not happy about. The three also enlist the aid of a Cockney (Wilding) who is married to the owner of a café.

The story is pretty absurd, though done with a straight face. First of all, Red and Peter walk around this French village in trench coats like no one is after them, and they stick out like sore thumbs. They bluff their way into German headquarters as champagne salesmen and these dumb Germans give them a lot of info about troops, and leave them alone in the commandant's office so they can take a look at the map and write down targets.

The saving grace of the film is that it focuses on a family and the effect of war, and there, it does a decent job. These films were meant to keep people going during the war. I'm sure at the time no one noticed the more amusing parts. Evidently someone did later on, though.

I'd call this mildly entertaining, and if you know the show on which it's based, you'll love it. Kind of like seeing Zero Hour after you've seen Airplane!

Watching Secret Mission answered at least one question for me. The British no less than us were capable of putting out wartime propaganda flicks where the Nazis are shown to be complete imbeciles.

Secret Mission is the one that British soldiers Hugh Williams, Roland Culver and Michael Wilding were on. Williams and Culver are officers and gentlemen, but Wilding is a cheeky cockney private who happens to be married to a local from the area in France they're going. He's familiar with it himself.

Also along is James Mason who has an atrocious French accent who is a member of the Free French and he has family in the area as well.

Why they're in that particular area is unclear, but our guys get lucky in learning the Germans are building a huge underground bunker with all kinds of things stored there. Do you doubt that the guys on the mission foil the Nazi plans? They even rescued a downed Canadian flier to boot.

No one will ever confuse this film with some thing like In Which We Serve. If I didn't know any better I'd swear this one was put out by one of our poverty row studios. Look fast and don't blink and you'll catch Stewart Granger in a bit role.

Neither Granger or Mason ever bragged about being in this one.

4 intelligence agents - Williams, Mason (with French accent!), Culver and Wilding (just plain silly), go to France to see what the Germans are up to.

Very basic propaganda nonsense - all stiff upper lips and nazis all stupid and fresh out of pantomime with only Lehman and Culver retaining some little dignity. Like 'Allo, Allo' without the laughs - really not worth catching unless it's raining (heavily) and you've nothing better to do.

During WWII, Hollywood made hundreds of films aimed at solidifying the public's support for the war. Some of these were extremely well made while others often made the Japanese or Germans seem semi-human and rather stupid. These less well made and less realistic films often were, in spire of themselves, quite entertaining...but also very obvious in their aims. When I saw "Secret Mission" I realized that the British, too, could make ridiculously unrealistic propaganda films....and while the Nazis aren't quite as cartoonish as some of Hollywood's Nazis, they were incredibly stupid...so stupid you wonder how they ever took over most of Europe!!

The story involves some British spies as well as one French one (James Mason of all people) who sneak into France in order to survey the area before an upcoming invasion. The Nazis are uniformly dim...having very lax security and falling for pretty much every lame attempt at subterfuge! The Germans are SO dumb that it really takes away from the movie...and doesn't show how efficiently evil they really were!

So is it any good? Well, it's not terrible...not that this is a glowing endorsement! Overall, despite some very fine actors (such as MIchael Redgrave, Herbert Lom and Roland Carver), a relatively dull offering...one that is watchable but not much more.

This otherwise routine propaganda piece, intended to lift spirits during the war, is redeemed by its focus on the personal effects of war. We can sympathize with the tough moral choices faced by the occupied French population, while we still have time for a laugh and a languid kiss before getting on with the serious business of outwitting the Nazis.