Clark Gable stars in a wartime espionage drama which has as many thrills as surprises. It is based on the controversy which still rages about whether the Allied paratroop assault at Arnhem during WWII was betrayed.
Lana Turner is Carla Van Oven, the Secret Service worker suspected of giving information to the enemy, while Victor Mature is a freelance Resistance leader (‘The Scarf’) whose methods are sometimes unorthodox.
The film was shot on location in the Netherlands amid some delightful Dutch Delft settings.
Gable – starring as Dutch army officer Colonel Pieter Deventer who has escaped the Gestapo to help the British in the war against the Germans – was 53 when he made this film, and to the Dutch locals, he was a superstar. During shooting in a small Dutch town, director Gottfried Reinhardt asked for 800 extras. Three thousand turned up, most of them just to catch a glimpse of Gable.
Colonel Pieter Deventer
Clark Gable
Carla Van Oven
Lana Turner
The Scarf
Victor Mature
General Ten Eyck
Louis Calhern
Colonel Helmuth Dietrich
O.E. Hasse
General Charles Larraby
Wilfrid Hyde-White
Captain Jackie Lawson
Ian Carmichael
Blackie
Niall MacGinnis
The Scarf’s Mother
Nora Swinburne
General Warsleigh
Roland Culver
Pop
Leslie Weston
Chris
Christopher Rhodes
Jan’s Grandmother
Lily Kann
Jan
Brian Smith
Captain Von Stanger
Anton Diffring
Director
Gottfried Reinhardt