Opération Amsterdam

OPERATION AMSTERDAM is a strong WW2 movie with a great premise: a team including a Brit and two Dutch are sent into Amsterdam just as the Nazis are invading the country. They've been tasked with retrieving a priceless cache of diamonds from the city's jewellers and thus preventing them from falling into German hands. Along the way they must contend with German mines, bombing, Fifth Columnists, and the German soldiers who have already begun arriving in the city.

It's one of the strongest backdrops I can remember seeing in a film and the suspense goes through the roof from the outset. What I liked about OPERATION AMSTERDAM is that, despite the outlandish premise, the whole thing is rooted in realism; there are no gung-ho heroics, just characters struggling through as best they can. The production values are excellent and while there isn't a wealth of needless action in the film, a climactic firefight is expertly choreographed and one of the best filmed ever (eat your heart out, HEAT!).

The cast is very fine and includes Peter Finch in a solid hero-type role. My favourite character was that of the lovely Eva Bartok, who plays a resistance fighter with courage and determination, even more so than the men she helps. The real star of the show, though, is director Michael McCarthy, who had previously only helmed TV fare and low budget B-films. In OPERATION AMSTERDAM he was given a proper budget and ran away with it, although the success was bittersweet; he died in the same year the film was released.

Operation Amsterdam is a no frills war thriller about a special mission to the Netherlands. British major Tony Britton is sent there accompanied by a pair of Dutch diamond merchants, Peter Finch and Alexander Knox. Their mission is to clean out as many industrial diamonds as they can from the diamond brokers which the city is known for.

Those industrial black diamonds ain't pretty and don't sparkle. But they are the hardest things on planet earth. Drill bits to shape metal are invaluable in an industrial economy, all the more so on a war footing. The Nazis could really use them and they are hours away from occupying the Low Countries.

This one moves at a nice clip with grainy black and white cinematography to demonstrate the coming darkness to fall on the Netherlands and Europe.

Along the way the men of the mission save Eva Bartok from suicide and she proves invaluable. Her own wartime experiences gave her depth to her role that was unique. No time for romance, but Finch is clearly interested and might be looking her up after the war assuming both survive.

No super heroics, just some men, Dutch and British doing a job that needed to be done in Operation Amsterdam.

The Germans have invaded Holland and are in the process of occupying Amsterdam, some of them masquerading as Dutch fighters called Fifth Columnists. The British dispatch British Army Intelligence Officer Tony Britton with Dutch diamond men Alexander Knox and Peter Finch to get the industrial grade diamonds out of Amsterdam before Hitler can get them for use in machine processing for weapons production. Eva Bartok drives the trio from the dock into Amsterdam after being prevented from committing suicide and then sticks around to assist in the mission. Based on a true story this is well made with great acting and very suspenseful. Beautiful on location filming in and around Amsterdam. The movie so effectively puts the viewer into the frightening situation the Dutch were facing that it plays as good as a documentary. Highly recommended!

Unseen Nazi jackboots are marching into Holland in the darkest days of WWII and Churchill's government is worried about all the industrial diamonds lying around in Amsterdam that could be used for the German war effort. Being British, we're obviously not going to rely on Frenchy to nip across and spirit the city's entire stock away before the invading hordes arrive so we send a rather colourless secret agent in the form of Tony Britton, the son of an Amsterdam diamond merchant (Peter Finch) and another chap who just seems to be along for the ride (Alexander Knox, who looks worrying dispensable throughout but somehow manages to emerge from the entire escapade unscathed).

Our unlikely heroes hitch a lift to Amsterdam from a distraught Eva Bartok who has just witnessed her boyfriend's boat being bombed by the Luftwaffe and is about to drive into the harbour waters to look for him. At first they fear she might be a fifth columnist, but she turns out to be a plucky heroine, picking up the machine gun of a fallen resistance fighter to sullenly strafe the enemy at one point.

Operation Amsterdam is one of those films that deserves to be better known because it's really quite good. The location photography of an eerily near-deserted Amsterdam is effective, and the tension is ramped up quite nicely until the whole thing seems to run out of steam in the final reel as our heroes make their getaway. The problem is that nobody is really aware that they are in fact getting away because their exploits haven't yet been uncovered. Anyway, when the film isn't testing our heroes it's commenting on the unenvious position in which the City's diamond merchants – many of whom are Jewish and only too aware of the treatment meted out to their creed by the Nazis. One old chap tries to bargain a place on the boat back to Britain for his sick, elderly wife but is gently rebuffed.

Perhaps the film's main weakness is the suspicion that something wasn't quite right during post-production. Midway through, the film seems to take a disconcerting leap forward, and suddenly there's little Melvyn Hayes sitting in the back of a car with our fellows. Now where did he come from? A neighbour of hero number three's mum, apparently (so that's why he tagged along), although we're never see this mother-and-son reunion – even though you suspect the scenes were filmed.

Operation Amsterdam is a pleasant surprise. It has both a strong story and some unusual cinematic touches to keep the viewer interested.

The story of the British secret service agents who are sent to Amsterdam to recover industrial diamonds before the German invasion is a familiar one, and their eventual safe escape is predictable enough.

What interested me was the atmosphere of fear and bleakness that the producers manage to convey. The empty streets, in bright sunlight; the columns of fleeing people; the confusion of not knowing who are enemies or friends, makes for a better than average effects.

Added to this a score made only with drums, and some very abrupt editing that is almost painful to watch, makes this a worthwhile watch.