1965 - OPERATION CROSSBOW, an attempt at a realistic James Bond film.

In the middle of the James Bond spy movie craze. Every film studio had to have some kind of spy movie.  Out comes this British film about the World War II German V1 and V2 rocket program.

 As the Germans perfect their "flying rocket bombs", the British mobilize their secret agents to stop them.  This involves casting practically every British character actor in the United Kingdom. All my old acting favorites show up in this film, Trevor Howard, John Mills, Richard Johnson, Tom Courtney, Richard Todd, Ferdy Mayne, Anton Differing, Anthony Quayle,  the list is endless.

 

 The producer throws a couple of ringers into the mix.  Sophia Loren, who gets top billing and George Peppard clearly cast for the American market.  Loren's husband Carlo Ponti was the producer.

The director tries for a semi documentary approach but the script can't entirely avoid going down the road of melodrama and coincidence.  Still this is a really good looking film and lots of stuff blows up at the end. 

A couple of minutes on the internet is probably in order to read about the real Operation Crossbow mission.  It's actually kind of fascinating how the British managed to deal with the V1 and V2 rockets during the war.

The writers were Emeric Pressburger (under an alias, Richard Imrie for some reason), Derry Quinn and Ray Rigby.

116 minutes.