Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris (miscast as Norwegians but without an accent) win the Second World War by blowing up the German’s heavy-water factory in Norway – and sinking a cargo of the stuff to the bottom of a fjord – to prevent the Nazis from developing an atom bomb.
The wide-screen snowscapes – shot on location in and around Rjukan (Norway) in colour and Panovision – look spectacular.
The real-life World War II missions on which this movie was based (‘Operation Freshman’, ‘Operation Grouse’, and ‘Operation Gunnerside’) were conducted by Norwegian members of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and resulted in the deaths of thirty British commandos.
Some were captured, interrogated, tortured, and shot by the Gestapo, while some of them died when two gliders crashed upon landing in Norway.
Rolf
Kirk Douglas
Knut Strand
Richard Harris
Anna
Ulla Jacobsson
Uncle
Michael Redgrave
Arne
David Weston
Gunnar
Sebastian Breaks
Freddy
John Golightly
Oli
Alan Howard
Henrik
Patrick Jordan
Claus
William Marlowe
Einar
Brook Williams
Jensen
Roy Dotrice
Major Frick
Anton Diffring
Nilssen
Ralph Michael
Terboven
Eric Porter
Knippelberg
Wolf Frees
Hartmuller
Karel Stepanek
Erhardt
Gerard Heinz
Col. Wilkinson
Mervyn Johns
Professor Logan
Barry Jones
General Bolt
Geoffrey Keen
General Courts
Robert Ayres
Sigrid
Jennifer Hilary
Director
Anthony Mann