Orders to Kill **** (1958, Paul Massie, Irene Worth, James Robertson Justice, Leslie French, Eddie Albert, Lillian Gish, John Crawford, Lionel Jeffries, Sandra Dorne) – Classic Movie Review 6870

The 1958 British thriller Orders to Kill is a powerful and persuasive wartime moral dilemma film. Paul Massie stars as an American agent parachuted into France in World War Two with orders to kill a supposed double agent, who may be innocent. 

Director Anthony Asquith’s 1958 British black and white psychological thriller Orders to Kill is an extremely powerful and persuasive wartime moral dilemma film.

Paul Massie stars as Gene Summers, a French-speaking American agent parachuted into France in World War Two with orders to kill a supposed double agent, French lawyer Lafitte (Leslie French), a meek sort of family person, whom he soon comes to think may be innocent of suspected treachery as a Nazi sympathiser, leading to an agonising moral dilemma.

Among a strong cast, Massie gives a very fine performance, and so also do an outstanding Irene Worth as a French Resistance worker, Lillian Gish as Massie’s mother Mrs Summers and Eddie Albert as his trainer, Major MacMahon.

With Paul Dehn’s rarely intelligent, thoughtful screenplay to work from, this distinguished movie is directed with polished assurance and grim determination by an on-form Asquith, in one of this underrated film-maker’s finest films. Dehn’s screenplay is based on an original story by Donald C Downes, adapted for the screen by George St George.

It won three Bafta Film Awards. Irene Worth won the British Academy Award as Best British Actress, Paul Dehn won Best British Screenplay and Paul Massie won Most Promising Newcomer to Film. Anthony Asquith was a nominee for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival (1958).

Also in the cast are James Robertson Justice, John Crawford, Lionel Jeffries, Sandra Dorne, Nicholas Phipps, Jacques B Brunius, Anne Blake, Lillie Bea Gifford, Sam Kydd, Miki Iveria, Henzie Raeburn, Robert Henderson, Ann Walford, Philip Bond and Andreas Malandrinos.

Orders to Kill (aka Order to Kill) is directed by Anthony Asquith, runs 112 minutes, is produced by Lynx Films, distributed by British Lion Films, written by Paul Dehn (screenplay) and George St George (adapted for the screen by), based on an original story by Donald C Downes, shot in black and white by Desmond Dickinson, produced by Anthony Asquith and Anthony Havelock-Allan, and scored by Benjamin Frankel, with Art Direction by John Howell.

It was shot at Shepperton Studios, Surrey, England.

It was released on DVD by Studio Canal on 17 August 2009, cert 12.

Similar films are Undercover (1943), Odette (1950), The Camp on Blood Island (1958), The High Command, Young Winston, Sink The Bismarck!, Operation Amsterdam, Freedom Radio and Night Boat to Dublin.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6870

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