Anatole Litvak, the Ukrainian-born director who signed such great works as GOODBYE AGAIN, SNAKE PIT, among other films, serves up a well directed effort in DECISION BEFORE DAWN.
The French gave the film the title of LE TRAITRE (the traitor), which strikes me as more truthful and effective than DECISION BEFORE DAWN... because ultimately there is no decision, the whirlwind of war action just removes decision from everyone's hands, even the Americans trying to win the war quickly in German territory.
Human life is not worth burned skin in this movie, and Oskar Werner - superior performance - conveys that situation quite effectively as he somehow eludes death by willingly changing allegiance and serving his country's invaders, changing his name, changing documents, changing clothes, even grabbing a Gestapo necklace from a dead man... but in the end you cannot escape your fate.
Gary Merrill and Richard Basehart have comparatively smaller parts than Werner as Americans using captured German soldiers as spies. Understandably, nothing is honorable about anyone's actions in this film and I can live with that - war does indeed force everyone into unwanted and unexpected situations. I just did not find some of those situations likely to happen, namely Gestapo officers allowing Werner to live a minute longer than orders to kill him, Werner trying to swim with cramps and still not getting hit by bullets fired from German forces, Basehart also escaping unseen in very cold waters. For a film that opens with a firing squad executing a traitor, I found that I had to suspend my disbelief rather more often than I care for.
That said, I found the movie compelling and watched it one shot from beginning to end. 7/10.
The French gave the film the title of LE TRAITRE (the traitor), which strikes me as more truthful and effective than DECISION BEFORE DAWN... because ultimately there is no decision, the whirlwind of war action just removes decision from everyone's hands, even the Americans trying to win the war quickly in German territory.
Human life is not worth burned skin in this movie, and Oskar Werner - superior performance - conveys that situation quite effectively as he somehow eludes death by willingly changing allegiance and serving his country's invaders, changing his name, changing documents, changing clothes, even grabbing a Gestapo necklace from a dead man... but in the end you cannot escape your fate.
Gary Merrill and Richard Basehart have comparatively smaller parts than Werner as Americans using captured German soldiers as spies. Understandably, nothing is honorable about anyone's actions in this film and I can live with that - war does indeed force everyone into unwanted and unexpected situations. I just did not find some of those situations likely to happen, namely Gestapo officers allowing Werner to live a minute longer than orders to kill him, Werner trying to swim with cramps and still not getting hit by bullets fired from German forces, Basehart also escaping unseen in very cold waters. For a film that opens with a firing squad executing a traitor, I found that I had to suspend my disbelief rather more often than I care for.
That said, I found the movie compelling and watched it one shot from beginning to end. 7/10.