ASSIGNMENT IN BRITTANY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 224, 8 October 1943, Page 13

ASSIGNMENT IN BRITTANY

(M.G.M.)

OMMANDOS #§ssstrike . again at dawn, and this time some of them are equipped with bows and arrows. This touch of toxophilitic novelty is practically

the only thing which distinguishes Assignment in Brittany from half the other spy melodramas that Hollywood has ever produced. Judging by such pictures, nearly everybody in the world must have a double, and these coincidences. of appearance always conveniently occur whenever the Government wants to send an agent into enemy territory to gather Vital Informaticn. Just pop into the nearest hospital or prison-camp and look around until you notice somebody who exactly resembles your spy; then send your spy off to take his place with the folks back home. What could be easier? In this case, a Free French officer impersonates a renegade Frenchman, and goes off to Brittany, where he insinuates himself into the bosom of the renegade’s family to gain information about a submarine base. Then follow hairbreadth escapes, capture, and torture by the Nazis; patriotism and perfidy by the French villagers; a secret wireless station, and a message that gets through to the British-whereupon, the commandos come galloping up in the nick of time and save the situation. Sorry, they don’t gallop; I wonder what made me think of cowboys? Fade-out on close embrace of here and heroine aboard a destroyer, while battle-stained British commandos courteously sing the Marseillaise. The star is Pierre Aumont, a new French actor in Hollywood. I did not get the impression that he was taking this particular job of acting very seri-ously-but then, why should he?