Lisa

Original title: The Inspector

1962
Approved
1h 52m

IMDb RATING

6.7/10

479

YOUR RATING

Drama History Romance Thriller

At the end of WW2, a compassionate Dutch policeman helps smuggle a Jewish woman into British Palestine.At the end of WW2, a compassionate Dutch policeman helps smuggle a Jewish woman into British Palestine.At the end of WW2, a compassionate Dutch policeman helps smuggle a Jewish woman into British Palestine.

Director
- Philip Dunne
Writers
- Nelson Gidding
- Jan de Hartog
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.7/10

479

YOUR RATING

Director
- Philip Dunne
Writers
- Nelson Gidding
- Jan de Hartog
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 nomination

Photos5

Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
The character of the Inspector, Jongman, was somewhat altered for this film version, to make the part suitable for Stephen Boyd. He had had a long-term contract with Twentieth Century-Fox and it was still trying to build him into a major star. In the book, Jongman is a man well into middle-age, a burnt-out case worn down by a lifetime of compromises. In the film he is a much younger man whose unhappiness is caused by one specific incident, his failure to save his fiancee from death during the war. The film was a box-office flop, and Boyd left Fox soon after, although he would occasionally work for the company later on in his career.

Goofs
British agent Dickens tells Jongman that he was a soldier in one of the army units that liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp. Auschwitz was located in Poland, hundreds of miles east of the places where the American/British and Russian forces met. Auschwitz was liberated by the Russians.

Quotes
Peter Jongman: A policeman is suppose to be a servant of justice. Mother, legal or not, this is something I have to do.

Connections
Featured in TCM Guest Programmer: Mother Dolores Hart (2014)

User reviews20

Review

Featured review

7/10

An unwanted guest

Dolores Hart heads a cast of mostly British players in The Inspector, a film about a Dutch Jewish refugee determined to get to Palestine. Her's is a tightly controlled performance of a woman for whom every kind of emotion has been drained out of her. But she wants more than life itself to live in a Jewish homeland, a place where she doesn't feel like an unwanted guest.

Stephen Boyd plays a Dutch police inspector who covers up the fact that she killed a white slaver looking to pimp out her sexual services. Boyd and Hart are kept under a loose surveillance by British intelligence as many try to help them in their quest.

As we know the politics of oil kept the British who occupied Palestine tilting toward the Arabs. But for many, humanity dictated otherwise.

A nice cast was put together in support of Boyd and Hart and standing out are Leo McKern as a gruff Dutch barge captain, Donald Pleasence as a surveilling policeman and Hugh Griffith as a gunrunner.

For the leads this is some of the best work they do in their interrupted careers, Boyd by an early death and Hart by retiring from acting to go into a convent where she still is a mother/prioress.

Exodus was an epic tale of the founding of Israel. The Inspector reduces the story to an inspiring singularity.