Tonight We Raid Calais

While "Tonight We Raid Calais" isn't the most realistic film and it smacks very hard of a wartime propaganda flick, it is well made and worth seeing.

"Tonight We Raid Calais" begins with a soldier being called out of a meet for a special assignment. I liked this scene as when you hear various names called out, one was 'Chateaubriand'---which is a type of tenderloin steak. I think someone slipped this one in as a joke. But the special assignment is not a joke--a French-speaking British soldier is sent to pinpoint a German weapons factory so that bombers can hone in one it. Once in France, however, it becomes clear that while most are patriotic and hate their German overlords, some are more than willing to save their own sorry skins by appeasing their new masters. Will the soldier's assignment succeed...and will he pick up a hot French lady at the same time? Overall, the film does what it was intended to do--shore up support for the war effort. While it's not brilliant, it's well made, interesting and different. Worth seeing--especially so you can see Lee J. Cobb play a Frenchman! Annabella (Mrs. Tyrone Power)

By the way, the leading lady, Annabella, was married to Tyrone Power.

John Brahm delivers a quickly paced and decently focussed tale of British commando "Carter" (John Sutton) who must make contact with the French resistance and arrange for them to help him target a vital Nazi munitions factory for RAF bombing. What now ensues is sometimes quite a potent look at just how the French were living under the rule of their conquerors. "Odette" (Annabella) and her father "Bonnard" (Lee J. Cobb) have him living with them, and must tread a very fine line between staying alive and keeping their family safe whilst helping the Briton ensure the destruction of the plant. Let's just say they don't agree on the best strategy and in desperation the jeopardy gets distinctly more real for "Carter"! Neither the writing nor the acting here is especially notable - indeed Cobb is a little fish-out-of-water, but the film itself manages to convey a degree of the menace lived under by those occupied families. It was made mid-war, so does have a certain propagandist function to it, but in the main this is quite a tautly directed wartime adventure with just a hint of a conscience.

Production values are very basic in this quickly made WW II soft-propaganda effort. The writing is wooden and predictable with the appropriate highs and lows considering the patriotic terrain of 1942-43. There were hundreds of these films made--inexpensive, short and fit right into the lower half of a double feature--the meat and potatoes of the time. There is a U.S. War Bonds logo at the end of the film, and as I remember it, they would actually go around in the movie house and collect for the war effort. John Sutton manages to make a payday with his acting, and a young Lee J. Cobb (made up to look older!) does show signs of his later greatness. Annabella's part is so contrived, that it would have challenged a far better actress to make it work. To the history of propaganda cinema buffs, "Calais" should hold one's interest.

From the B picture unit at 20th Century Fox, Tonight We Raid Calais has John Sutton as an RAF pilot on the ground doing a bit of spotting for the RAF. Where he's doing it is in occupied France and out of uniform.

RAF high command wants to make sure it hits a factory building tanks so Sutton has the job of locating it and lighting the way for the RAF night attack. But a woman who is unhappy because her brother was killed by the British at Oran after the Vichy government drafted him could gum up his plans. Annabella has no love for the occupying Germans except for the sex she's forced to give up to a rather brutish Wehrmacht sergeant played by Howard DaSilva.

A couple of outstanding performances also come from those playing Annabella's parents. Lee J. Cobb and Beulah Bondi especially from Bondi who innocently betrays Sutton to the enemy.

Tonight We Raid Calais is your typical wartime flag waver. The writer is Waldo Salt of the infamous Hollywood Ten. Look all you want to see if there was anything that got the old mastodons on the House Un-American Activities Committee aroused.

I think all you'll find is a decent action flick.

The Germans are manufacturing anti-tank gizmos in Picardy, upriver from Calais. John Sutton is sent there to somehow mark the factory so that when the RAF is bombing the stuffing out of Calais, some can take a side trip and destroy the widget plant. It goes pretty well. He meets Lee J. Cobb, whose wife is Beulah Bondi and daughter Annabelle, a typical French family. He impersonates the son of the family.... but somehow the nasty Nazis find out about him, arrest the family. Sutton has largely disappeared from the screen by this point, turned into a Maguffin, so the Germans get the increasingly dimwitted Annabelle to track them down for them.

It's actually a pretty good script, with lots of moving parts, even if Lee J. Cobb is as French as a Brooklyn Dodgers fan can be. It's clearly no more than a programmer; it lacks even the recognizable, dilapidated star fronting a Fox B movie. Director John Brahm keeps up the pace, though, and Lucien Ballard uses a lot of side lighting toincrease the drama, resulting in a good movie.