30 Dec Decision Before Dawn
(1951) This motion picture was made entirely in Europe, where the story took place. It feels very authentic, filmed in the bombed out ruins of Germany.
Decision Before Dawn, WWII Movie starring Richard Basehart
Immediately I picked up that this was about an OSS mission because early in the story the Richard Basehart character narrates that he had just been assigned to report to “G-2 SSS.” I have read that the OSS would not allow filmmakers to use the name “OSS.” G-2 referred to Army intelligence.
This film is based on the book “Call it Treason” by George Howe who actually was in the OSS. A German POW is recruited to go back behind German lines to gather critical information about troop movements. Almost the entire movie is about this young man, played by Oskar Werner, and his conflicting feelings as he works through this mission.
According to a TCM article, “Decision Before Dawn is a minor landmark in movie history, in that it was one of the first non-German productions to treat World War II-era Germans as something more than bloodthirsty combatants who all blindly followed Hitler’s whims.”
The movie was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. It was Austrian actor Oskar Werner’s first Hollywood film. He had been drafted into the German army in 1941. Being a pacifist and anti-Nazi, he married a half-Jewish girl, deserted the army and hid out until the end of the war. In Decision Before Dawn he didn’t have to act very much … he was just playing out his own personal history.
I ordered the book and was thrilled to receive a vintage copy that was published in 1949.
Watch the original trailer on TCM.
Decision Before Dawn on amazon.com
No Comments