Count Five and Die

It takes some time before the action gets going in this film, but when it starts it never ceases to accelerate in intrigue, suspension and drama. Annemarie Duringer is prominetly leading the film by her very suave and susceptible character, most amiable but with an abyss of hidden agenda. Nigel Patrick is perfect as usual, almost too perfect, while Jeffrey Hunter is a bit of an outsider in this game, can't really handle his business nor himself, and he has to pay for it. It's very dark and almost claustrophobic in the insistency on scenes in labyrinthine insides, and only rarely you go out into dark streets för some following or spying or bullets. The title "Count Five and Die" gives away the whole drama - as a spy sent out on a mission you are given a cyanide capsule in case you get caught, and when you swallow it you count to five and die. It's very easy but not really and actually rather complicated, as you don't always reach that capsule in time...

It reminds very much of Anthony Asquith's "Orders to Kill" a few years earlier, it's the same kind of problems of innocence and the wrong people getting caught up in the wrong game, and above all the doom of destiny is there hanging around more people than anyone bargained for.

Supposedly based on a true story, this British film starring Jeffrey Hunter is very good, considering what was in all probability low budget.

The plot concerns feeding incorrect information to the Axis about where D-Day would actually take place. When a young woman comes from Holland to join the intelligence team, she needs to be checked out carefully, as she is suspected of being a spy.

Hunter and Nigel Patrick do a very good job and Hunter's boyishness is especially appealing. He had a nice, relaxed way about him before the cameras and like so many other incredibly handsome men, undoubtedly had a tough time convincing anyone that he could really act. But he really could. Sad that he died so young. Anne-Marie Duringer is the love interest under suspicion.

It may be a little slow at times, but also quite interesting.

OSS Major Jeffrey Hunter is seconded to Colonel Nigel Patrick. They seem to be running a film company. In reality they're working on the Normandy invasion. Their unit leaks information like a sieve. It's meant to. They're trying to convince the Germans that the invasion will take place, at least in part, in the Netherlands. If the Germans believe this, they'll station divisions far from the actual invasion. Among the people they think is a German spy is Dutch Annemarie Düringer. Has she caught onto the game they're playing?

Even though the War years kept warning us about German propaganda and German spies -- who seemed to wander about the landscape without anyone noticing what they were doing -- there seems to be little doubt that the British played both games much better. At least some of the claims about German atrocities were not believed because they seemed to be repetitions of what had been said during the Great War. It was only after the war that the exploits of British Intelligence like this and THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS began to surface, and even longer for it to turn out that Ian Fleming was an insane operations runner.

It's a standard but well executed espionage thriller, even though it takes almost a third of its length to start moving.

I rated this movie with 6/10 which agreed with the communal IMDb.com rating when I checked.The title refers to how long it takes to die for a person who is caught spying after they have taken a cyanide suicide capsule.So we are in the realm of WW11 in 1944 when the allies had to trick the Germans into thinking the invasion would occur in Holland so that they kept important divisions tied up there.Nigel Patrick plays the British major and Jeffrey Hunter plays the American captain whose task is to sell this fiction to the Germans.In the mix comes AnneMarie Duringer, who being Swiss born had a believable accent and who plays a Dutch agent transported to London.Is she what she seems?

I must say that spy movies set in war time in this country (e.g."Night Train to Munich 1940) , seem to show that our country was over populated by Nazi agents.In fact very few German agents could survive for long in the paranoid state we lived under when any one that appeared different would attract suspicion from the public.I found the love scene between Jeffrey Hunter and Annemarie Duringer very contrived and unconvincing.Nigel Patrick was adequate.The reality of deceiving the Germans about when and where the invasion would happen was almost an industry with many more participants from the allies than this film suggested.

I could nearly confound this WW2 espionage film with BETRAYED - 1954 - because it takes place in Netherlands too - Holland - and the evil character is also very interesting, surprising. This movie is good but maybe lacks budget and also a bit ambition. I like the woman character, and after the viewing, you can easily guess why.... It's not at the same scale as 36 HOURS - another movie speaking of the approaching D DAY - nor even BETRAYED, starring Clark Gable, Lana Turner and Victor Mature. Speaking of Victor, I am also amazed to see that the director here, Victor Vicas, is the same film maker who, later, direct the famous French series LES BRIGADES DU TIGRE, where, there will also be some women characters rather close to the one here, played by Annemarie Düringer.