1943 - NORTHERN PURSUIT, ridiculous World War II thriller

Apparently Nazi agents were running all over northern Canada during World War II. Fortunately Erroll Flynn is on the job as an undercover member of the RCMP.  It's hard to know what to make of this film.  During the war the studios were good at putting out films that were essentially propaganda pieces for the country.  Some were even decent like Air Force, The Mortal Storm or The Great Dictator .  But Northern Pursuit needs to be put in the same category as Flynn's other silly propaganda film Desperate Journey, which had Flynn and Ronald Reagan as Allied pilots trapped behind Nazi lines battling their way back to England.  Flynn is the star in this film so he gets no help from Reagan this time.

The plot involves the Nazi's sneaking bomber parts into Canada so they can assemble a bomber and blow up a canal between Canada and the United States, that's determination for you.  Somehow the Nazi's capture Flynn's fiancee played by an actor named Julie Bishop who was one of those second tier performers who never hit the big time.  Since the film is set in snowy Canada we have lots of studio footage of fake snowy sets mixed with actual 2nd unit footage shot in some winter locations.  I can only assume that the actors were roasting under the bright soundstage lights in their winter fur outfits. 

The film was directed by Raoul Walsh who apparently thought the film was nothing more than a "potboiler."  Walsh was a good director and the best thing you can say about this film is that he paced the film so well that the damn thing does move along quickly.  The rumor mill said that William Faulkner worked on uncredited on the screenplay but you'll find no traces of Faulkener's "The Sound and the Fury."  The film also makes a joke about Flynn's real life rape trial.  Flynn was to put it as mildly as possible a real lady killer in his personal life.

The screenplay is credited to  Frank Gruber and Alvah Bessie.  The running time is a quick 93 minutes.