AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Raetsonwe Redundant and unnecessary.

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

jacobs-greenwood aka Tartu (1943) aka Sabotage Agent (1943)Directed by Harold Bucquet, with a story by John Higgins and a screenplay by John Lee Mahin and Howard Emmett Rogers, this slightly above average espionage thriller was the first film MGM Studios was able to get Robert Donat to agree to do after his Oscar winning performance in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939); he had a right of refusal clause in his contract.As British Captain Terence Stevenson, who defuses a bomb in a partially collapsed London hospital during World War II, Donat's character is asked to assume the identity of Romanian chemist Jan Tartu in order to infiltrate and destroy a German poison gas factory hidden in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Stevenson was chosen to become a spy because of his familiarity with the area and the languages from his youth. As Tartu, he pretends to be a dandy that wants to serve der Fuhrer (Adolf Hitler), but must make contact with the Czech resistance while avoiding detection and capture by the Nazis for whom he'll work. Valerie Hobson, Walter Rilla, Glynis Johns, Phyllis Morris, and Martin Miller are among those who also appear in key roles.When the only contact Tartu knows is captured, and later killed, right after they'd met, he must find a way to find and get help from the Czech resistance without alerting Nazi Inspector Otto Vogel (Rilla) and the other Germans. Vogel assigns Tartu to live in Anna Palacek's (Morris) boarding house, and a job watching Czech slave laborers in a munitions plant. Vogel has eyes for Maruschuka Lanova (Hobson), who lives in the same boarding house as Tartu, and Anna's daughter Paula (Johns).Tartu soon learns that all three women are part of the resistance movement and, after protecting Paula when she'd killed a German general, he earns Maruschuka's trust such that she approaches the resistance board, run by Doctor Novotny (Miller). In the meantime, careless Paula is caught trying to sabotage some of the artillery shells by another Nazi officer right while Tartu is nearby.Quick on his feet, Tartu decides to go straight to the plant's manager with a cover story that he'd been making friends with some of the Czech's to infiltrate their resistance. This leaves him free and clear, but another in the resistance hears this "confession" and tells it to Novotny who now, along with Maruschuka, suspects Tartu really is a Nazi. So, Maruschuka, who'd begun to fall in love with Tartu (beware the woman scorned!) decides to use Vogel to kill Tartu, who's now frustrated that he can't make contact with the resistance at the very time that he's gotten reassigned to the secret chemical plant.I don't want to spoil what happens next, but it's cleverly done and, naturally, works out for the best. Plus, just when you think the story's over, there's another few minutes of drama involving an escape.

ETO_Buff As clearly demonstrated by this film, prior to the Normandy invasion, the Allies were convinced that the Germans were manufacturing weaponized gas to use during the Second World War, just as they did during the the First World War. This assumption spawned this very typical propaganda film in which all of the Germans in occupied Czechoslovakia wear black SS uniforms with the skull and crossbones insignia of the Totenkopf Verband (the "Death's Head" Brigade was the SS unit that administered the concentration camp system) on their caps and greet each other and civilians with the Hitler salute. It's a melodramatic and very simplistic film where everything is reduced in complexity due to the näiveté of the filmmakers and the film audiences of the period. For this reason, instead of a team of well-trained saboteurs going in to execute the mission, a single tri-lingual army captain (Robert Donat) is parachuted in and has to make contact with "the Underground" in order to carry out what would be a huge, complicated mission in real life. Fortunately for our hero, the German tools in this film aren't the brightest ones in the Third Reich's shed and "the Underground" is easily convinced of his authenticity. It also doesn't hurt that one of the Underground's important members (Valerie Hobson) falls in love with him after spending an hour in his company. I should have given it three or four stars, for the lack of realism, but it is typical of the time period, so I gave it five.

SimonJack "Sabotage Agent" (aka, The Adventures of Tartu) is an excellent WWII action film. It begins with the bombing of London in 1940. It then moves into an espionage and spy thriller, and gives a very good account of the underground that operated in Nazi-occupied countries. The area covered is the Czech Republic. Until the fall of the Iron Curtin 20 years ago, very little was known about the underground that operated in eastern European countries. This film tells one story about it. The acting is top notch by all involved. The plot, writing and direction are first rate. A "best" movie for the quality of the production and what it shows about one aspect of WWII that is still so little told or understood today. The film has considerable historical value for these reasons, as well. A first-rate war, action and intrigue film produced in England. Excellent all around.

Robert J. Maxwell "The Adventures of Tartu." Sounds like a children's movie, doesn't it? Maybe about an orphan elephant or a unicorn. But it's more serious than that. Robert Donat is a British chemist sent into Rumania, through Germany, into Czechoslovakia to sabotage a huge industrial plant where the Nazis are manufacturing vast amounts of poison gas. Since he is fluent in Rumanian and German, he is able to impersonate a real Rumanian "Iron Guard" officer named Jan Tartu. In Pilsen, Czechoslovakia, whence "Pilsener" beer, he lodges with a patriotic Czech family, along with Valerie Hobson, the soul of elegance. The youngster in the family, a factory worker, is the teen-aged Glynis Johns, she of the wide brow and slanted eyelids.Donat is given one of those black Nazi uniforms with the tight boots and wide riding breeches that the movies required of the Nazis at that time, and he is appointed supervisor of the workers at the plant. He needs the help of the Czech underground but he doesn't know how to get in touch with them. Can he trust Valerie Hobson, who seems like a closet patriot under all that arrogance? The Gestapo keep nosing around though, so he must be ever vigilant.Identities get mixed up. Mistakes are made. Glynis Johns is caught sabotaging some of the shells being manufactured in the plant and is executed. But Donat succeeds in his mission, blows the plant to smithereens, and makes a suspenseful escape with Hobson and a few other patriots in a Junkers 88.For such a complicated yet slight tale, the story generates a good deal of suspense. And it's an appealing piece of work, due in large measure to Donat's performance as the ersatz Iron Guard officer. He overplays the womanizing trait of the character but that's a problem with the script and the direction, not Donat's performance. He's charming in the role and seems a likable kind of guy. The rest of the cast consists of seasoned players and provides good support.The story seems a little trite now. There were so many like it during the war. Errol Flynn's "Desperate Journey" was a lot more fun, and Fritz Lang's "Hangmen Also Die" did a better job of capturing the ethos of occupied Czechoslovakia. Still, this is not a bad example of the genre.It's too bad that Czechoslovakia has been split into the Czech Republic and that other independent nation whose name I can never remember. It makes one of the London Times' crossword puzzle entries obsolete. Quick -- name a major seaport in the middle of Czechoslovakia.Oslo. CzechOSLOvakia. Get it? What can you do with a name like The Czech Republic? "Name a British saloon near the end of The Czech Republic"? That's ridiculous.