The top credits go to the two American stars. Gary Merrill is the colonel who organizes an espionage venture behind the German lines at the Rhine River. Richard Basehart is the lieutenant who leads the team, taking with him two converted German POWs -- the canny and untrustworthy Hans Christian Blech, and the innocent idealistic Oskar Werner.
But the picture belongs to Oskar Werner. He's on screen most of the time and its his travails we track. He's given an assignment -- find out where a certain Panzer division is located -- and given a new identity, a corporal and a medic in the Luftwaffe with phony papers.
He discovers the whereabouts of the Panzers but comes under suspicion for the slightest of reasons. Little by little, his fake identity is stripped away until he becomes a fugitive before finally joining the rest of the team in an attempt to reach the Allied lines on the other side of the Rhine. The experience is harrowing for Werner and for the viewer.
But equally impressive is the tour of Germany's bare ruined choirs as the war's end approaches. There is a shortage of everything. The buildings are blackened skeletons. A theater has been turned into a vast crater filled with rubble.
During his quest, Werner runs into various German "types". There are the usual fanatical Gestapo and SS troops, but only one of each. Then there is the long and beautiful face of Hildegard Knef, who is a prostitute through no weaknesses of her own and whose story is moving, partly due to the actress' skills. You may or may not recognize Klaus Kinski in his brief appearance. He looks about fourteen.
But the man most impacted by this mission is Richard Basehart, as the team's leader. He's distant, contemptuous towards all Germans, but he expresses his distaste in subtle ways. He never gives a Big Speech about all the Krauts being the same. The expression "you and your kind" is never uttered.
Blech may be on the team because he's a con man and thinks he's gotten a better deal by spying than by remaining in a POW camp, but Werner is an idealist. Actually his position is close to that of von Runstedt and Rommel. They've fought the good fight and lost. Now it's time to end the war. Werner is the most ungainly runner imaginable. When he hurries through the rubble his shoulders are hunched and his arms wave about like Fred Astaire on a binge. But he can be a superb actor. His face is perfect for the role -- handsome, babyish, innocent, pensive.
The movie humanizes the Germans. It couldn't have been made much earlier than it was, 1951. Certain strictures were placed on the depiction of Germans during and immediately after the war. They couldn't be too good, although they could be thoroughly evil. In 1943, John Steinbeck's "The Moon Is Down" appeared on film and both Peter van Eyck, who played a fundamentally decent Nazi, and the author received boos from the public.
In the same year as "Decision Before Dawn", a story of Erwin Rommel, James Mason, was released -- "The Desert Fox." Mason spoke perfect English and Rommel was painted as an idealistic soldier who only reluctantly joined in the attempt to assassinate Hitler. (Which he didn't do, in real life.) More boos from the critics. The world wasn't ready to forgive Germany yet, and the following year Mason again played Rommel in "The Desert Rats", but as a stereotype, with false bravado and an English mangled by the worst German accent you could conjure up. We still occasionally run into German villains in modern movies, although they're hard put to compete with the Russians and with swarthy terrorists.
In some ways, "Decision Before Dawn" may be the best of the lot -- complex in the way that reality itself is complex. It's an adult movie and very suspenseful.
But the picture belongs to Oskar Werner. He's on screen most of the time and its his travails we track. He's given an assignment -- find out where a certain Panzer division is located -- and given a new identity, a corporal and a medic in the Luftwaffe with phony papers.
He discovers the whereabouts of the Panzers but comes under suspicion for the slightest of reasons. Little by little, his fake identity is stripped away until he becomes a fugitive before finally joining the rest of the team in an attempt to reach the Allied lines on the other side of the Rhine. The experience is harrowing for Werner and for the viewer.
But equally impressive is the tour of Germany's bare ruined choirs as the war's end approaches. There is a shortage of everything. The buildings are blackened skeletons. A theater has been turned into a vast crater filled with rubble.
During his quest, Werner runs into various German "types". There are the usual fanatical Gestapo and SS troops, but only one of each. Then there is the long and beautiful face of Hildegard Knef, who is a prostitute through no weaknesses of her own and whose story is moving, partly due to the actress' skills. You may or may not recognize Klaus Kinski in his brief appearance. He looks about fourteen.
But the man most impacted by this mission is Richard Basehart, as the team's leader. He's distant, contemptuous towards all Germans, but he expresses his distaste in subtle ways. He never gives a Big Speech about all the Krauts being the same. The expression "you and your kind" is never uttered.
Blech may be on the team because he's a con man and thinks he's gotten a better deal by spying than by remaining in a POW camp, but Werner is an idealist. Actually his position is close to that of von Runstedt and Rommel. They've fought the good fight and lost. Now it's time to end the war. Werner is the most ungainly runner imaginable. When he hurries through the rubble his shoulders are hunched and his arms wave about like Fred Astaire on a binge. But he can be a superb actor. His face is perfect for the role -- handsome, babyish, innocent, pensive.
The movie humanizes the Germans. It couldn't have been made much earlier than it was, 1951. Certain strictures were placed on the depiction of Germans during and immediately after the war. They couldn't be too good, although they could be thoroughly evil. In 1943, John Steinbeck's "The Moon Is Down" appeared on film and both Peter van Eyck, who played a fundamentally decent Nazi, and the author received boos from the public.
In the same year as "Decision Before Dawn", a story of Erwin Rommel, James Mason, was released -- "The Desert Fox." Mason spoke perfect English and Rommel was painted as an idealistic soldier who only reluctantly joined in the attempt to assassinate Hitler. (Which he didn't do, in real life.) More boos from the critics. The world wasn't ready to forgive Germany yet, and the following year Mason again played Rommel in "The Desert Rats", but as a stereotype, with false bravado and an English mangled by the worst German accent you could conjure up. We still occasionally run into German villains in modern movies, although they're hard put to compete with the Russians and with swarthy terrorists.
In some ways, "Decision Before Dawn" may be the best of the lot -- complex in the way that reality itself is complex. It's an adult movie and very suspenseful.