Mission à Tanger

A short historical comment tells us ,that before the Operation Torch in November 1942 ,many persons sacrificed their life....

Secret agents are given a dangerous mission in Tanger: to pass on important documents to London.Two men have already been killed .

The last victim was Georges Masse's friend;Georges is a bon vivant,a journalist fond of whiskey and women ,and not at all concerned about his native country's plight and about the allies' fight;but overnight the loss of his friend makes him change his mind,although he remains laid-back and offhand .

The movie flirts with pastiche but never fully gives in to it;Raymond Rouleau is well cast as a heart-breaker ,some kind of forerunner of James Bond (Sean Connery's Bond ,of course!),with plenty of go and humor.The lines written by Audiard often turns the screenplay to comedy ,but not entirely:it was 1949,and a movie involving resistant fighters had to be (at least partly) serious.

The first thirty minutes contain lots of filler :cabaret songs ("Je Suis Seule Ce Soir"),interminable dancing and even tap-dancing .But Louis De Funès's appearance ,as a Spanish general,makes up for it.

As for the director,André Hunebelle ,it was some kind of blueprint for his spy thrillers of the sixties featuring French James Bond OSS 117;