Man Who Never Was [Blu-ray]

One of the finest WW II films of the 1950s
Although the film was a ostensibly a 20th Century Fox production, THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS was filmed in England using primarily English crew and cast (though American leads). It belongs to a tradition of English war films in which aspects of the war are treated slowly, deliberately, and with great precision. While in the US war films tended to feature John Wayne leading Marines into combat, the British tended to focus much more on the preparation and plans of operations. For instance, the very fine film THE DAM BUSTERS features very little in the way of actual combat. And THE MAN WHO NEVER WAY has no combat whatsoever.

The movie is based on a book by the same name about Operation Mincemeat, in which the British attempted to mislead the Germans about the intended invasion spot for D-Day by planting a corpse with fake papers on a beach in Spain, knowing that the Spanish would pass the papers onto the Germans. The entire movie is involved with the formation of the plan, and then...

Fine account of elaborate wartime hoax... Good DVD from Fox
This is a fine movie of wartime espionage, disinformation and deception. Based on the book by Lt. Cmdr. Ewen Montagu, it tells of British Naval Intelligence's attempt to deceive the Germans about the planned 1943 invasion of Sicily. Trying to draw as many German troops away from Sicily as possible, they concocted a plan to have a dead body wash ashore in Spain, with papers purportedly from Allied High Command indicating that the invasion would go by way of Greece or Sardinia instead of Sicily. The subterfuge succeeded. The Germans embarked on a massive build up of defences around Sardinia and the Greek Peloponnesus, thinning out their defences on Sicily. The hoax affected not only the Sicilian offensive but had effects across the entire European theater. Hitler swallowed it whole. Field Marshall Erwin Rommel was sent to personally supervise the defence of Greece. The 1st Panzer Division was withdrawn from France. Two other Panzer divisions were withdrawn from the Russian front just...

An exciting World War II movie
I rate "The Man Who Never Was" as an excellent and exciting World War II movie. Why can't movies be made like this anymore? Recent World War II movies are not accurate and place too much emphasis on effects. In my opinion, the more "special effects" a movie has, the more fake it is. Anyhow, "The Man Who Never Was" describes the true events of the British trying to confuse the Germans as to where the Allies will invade - Sicily or Greece. By arranging to have a dead body wash ashore in Spain with top-secret documents, the British cause the Germans to alter their defenses, thus saving the Allies from suffering even more casualties. How the British found a body, the details that they had to come up with to make the Germans believe the body was for real, and the subsequent German effort to determine whether or not the information found on the body was accurate, all make for an exciting story which moves at a swift pace. This is really a great World War II movie.

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