Commandos Strike at Dawn - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Commandos Strike at Dawn is a 1942 war film

War film

War films are a film genre concerned with warfare, usually about naval, air or land battles, sometimes focusing instead on prisoners of war, covert operations, military training or other related subjects. At times war films focus on daily military or civilian life in wartime without depicting battles...

directed by John Farrow

John Farrow

John Villiers Farrow, CBE was an Australian, later American, film director, producer and screenwriter. In 1957 he won the Academy Award for Best Writing / Best Screenplay for Around the World in Eighty Days and in 1942 he was nominated as Best Director for Wake Island.-Life and career:Farrow was...

and written by Irwin Shaw

Irwin Shaw

Irwin Shaw was a prolific American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and short-story author whose written works have sold more than 14 million copies. He is best-known for his novel, The Young Lions about the fate of three soldiers during World War II that was made into a film starring Marlon...

from a story by C.S. Forester, starring Paul Muni

Paul Muni

Paul Muni was an Austrian-Hungarian-born American stage and film actor...

, Anna Lee

Anna Lee

Anna Lee, MBE was an English actress.-Career:Lee studied at the Royal Albert Hall, then debuted with a bit part in the film His Lordship...

, Lillian Gish

Lillian Gish

Lillian Diana Gish was an American stage, screen and television actress whose film acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912 to 1987....

, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, and Robert Coote

Robert Coote

Robert Coote was an English actor. He played aristocrats or British military types in many films, and created the role of Colonel Hugh Pickering in the long-running original Broadway production of My Fair Lady.-Biography:Coote was educated at Hurstpierpoint College in Sussex...

Plot

Erik Toresen (Paul Muni), a widower and peaceful man, is stirred to violence after the Nazis

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

occupy his quiet Norwegian

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

fishing village. German abuses lead Erik to form a Resistance group. He manages to get to England, and guides some British Commandos

British Commandos

The British Commandos were formed during the Second World War in June 1940, following a request from the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, for a force that could carry out raids against German-occupied Europe...

to a raid on a secret airstrip the Germans are building on the Norwegian coast.

The film was shot in the Greater Victoria

Greater Victoria, British Columbia

Greater Victoria is located in British Columbia, Canada, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island. It is a cultural rather than political entity, usually defined as the thirteen easternmost municipalities of the Capital Regional District on Vancouver Island but also includes adjoining areas and...

, Canada, area. Saanich Inlet

Saanich Inlet

Saanich Inlet is a body of salt water that lies between the Saanich Peninsula and the Malahat highlands of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. Located just northwest of Victoria, the inlet is 24 km long , has a surface area of 65 km2 , and its maximum depth is 225 m . Great...

stands in for Norwegian Fjords. The airstrip is what would become the Victoria International Airport. Hall's Boat House (now Goldstream Marina) is where the wharf scenes are shot.

Plot

See also