I Was Monty’s Double **** (1958, Clifton James, John Mills, Cecil Parker, Patrick Allen, Leslie Phillips, Michael Hordern, Marius Goring) – Classic Movie Review 3774

The 1958 wartime hoax film I Was Monty’s Double is an entertaining and informative popular Fifties movie about a British World War Two attempt to fool the Germans.

Director John Guillermin’s 1958 British wartime hoax film I Was Monty’s Double follows the similar-minded The Man Who Never Was (1956) as an entertaining and informative popular Fifties movie about a British World War Two attempt to fool the Germans.

It tells the extraordinary wartime true story of a British character actor who impersonated Field Marshal Montgomery as a decoy in order to confuse the Nazis in North Africa in 1944.

It is grippingly filmed by Guillermin, encouraging top-notch performers headed by the real actor Clifton James, who acts convincingly as himself, though in truth, at least by this stage, he doesn’t look all that like Montgomery.

The screenplay (based on Clifton James’s own autobiographical book) is by Bryan Forbes, who also appears in support as a young lieutenant. It is old fashioned, but still good, adventure stuff, proving, once again, that truth is stranger than fiction. It is quite amazing that this Boy’s Own adventure story could be true.

I Was Monty’s Double also stars John Mills as Major Harvey, Cecil Parker as Colonel Logan, Patrick Allen as Colonel Mathers, Leslie Phillips as Major Tennant, Michael Hordern as the Governor of Gibraltar, and Marius Goring as Nielson.

Also in the cast are Barbara Hicks, James Hayter, Sidney James, Vera Day, Victor Maddern, Marne Maitland, Alfie Bass, Duncan Lamont, Patrick Holt, John le Mesurier, Harry Fowler, MacDonald Parke, Anthony Sagar, John Gale, Kenneth J Warrren, Brian Weske, Walter Gotell, Sam Kydd, Allan Cuthbertson, Ronnie Stevens and Edward Judd.

Re-titled Hell, Heaven or Hoboken in the US, the film is produced by the Associated British Picture Corporation.

It runs 99 minutes.

It was released on 21 September 1958.

Clifton James was barred under army regulations from mentioning that he impersonated Montgomery. But when Operation Copperhead was mentioned in the book My Three Years with Eisenhower, James received permission to write a book, which was published in 1954.

Forbes’s script follows James’s memoir, but there was no attempt to kidnap him. Hitler vetoed the German high command plan to have him killed.

David Niven, then a lieutenant colonel at the UK War Office, was the intelligence officer who recruited James.

Permission from Montgomery and the UK War Office to make the film was conditional on script approval.

Producer Maxwell Setton changed the nationality of Marius Goring’s spy character from Spanish to Swedish to enable the unit to film in Gibraltar, which had been a hotbed of German agents.

The cast are M E Clifton James as himself and General Montgomery, John Mills as Major Harvey, Cecil Parker as Colonel E. F. Logan, Patrick Allen as Colonel Mathers, Patrick Holt as Colonel Dawson, Leslie Phillips as Major Tennant, Michael Hordern as Governor of Gibraltar, Marius Goring as Karl Nielson, Barbara Hicks as Hester Baring, Duncan Lamont as Wing Commander Bates, Anthony Sagar as Guard Sergeant, John Gale as Flight Lieutenant Osborne, Kenneth J. Warren as Flying Officer Davies, James Hayter as Sergeant Adams, Sid James as Desk Clerk Y.M.C.A, MacDonald Parke as American General, John Le Mesurier as disgruntled officer, Vera Day as Angela, George Eugeniou as Garcia, Patrick Connor as Soldier in Tent, Sam Kydd as Soldier in Cinema, Alfie Bass as man on train, Allan Cuthbertson as Guards Officer, Harry Fowler, MacDonald Parke, Anthony Sagar, John Gale, Kenneth J Warrren, Brian Weske, Walter Gotell, Ronnie Stevens and Edward Judd.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3774

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