Friday, 30 November 2012

Have a proper gander


The Cross of Lorraine (1943)

Directed by Tay Garnett this film stars Jean-Pierre Aumont, Gene Kelly and Sir Cedric Hardwicke. Following the fall of France in 1940 a group of French soldiers are taking to a POW camp and find life is not as they expected.

Loosely based on the real life experiences of Hans Habe this film was clearly a propaganda effort made to help explain to American audiences the conditions in occupied Europe. How realistic the story is is probably open to question but it is a fairly similar to a number of other POW films set in the era. The film does open up some questions on the harsh choices between resistance and collaboration but is never really in a position to explore these fully due to the propaganda nature of the film.

3/5

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