The Man Who Never Was

Starring:Clifton Webb, Gloria Grahame, Robert Flemyng, Josephine Griffin, Stephen Boyd, Laurence Naismith, Geoffrey Keen, Moultrie Kelsall, Cyril Cusack, AndrÃ© Morell, Michael Hordern, Allan Cuthbertson, Joan Hickson, Terence Longdon, Gibb McLaughlin, Miles Malleson, William Russell (II), William Squire, Richard Wattis, Ronald Adam
Director: Ronald Neame
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Amazon.com
A real beauty of a true story provides the basis for The Man Who Never Was, a gripping World War II picture that has no combat scenes, no great vistas of troops. The time is 1943, as the Allies prepare the invasion of Sicily and desperately need a diversionary ploy to make the Germans suspect another invasion target. The solution is simple but ingenious: a dead man's body will be left in the sea to float ashore on the coast of Spain; made to look like a British pilot, he will be carrying papers suggesting an Allied attack on Greece. When the papers fall to the Nazis, they'll swallow the bogus storyor will they? The film's final third tracks an Irish spy for the Axis (Steven Boyd, in one of his first roles) as he travels to London to investigate loose ends.

Amazon.com

A real beauty of a true story provides the basis for The Man Who Never Was, a gripping World War II picture that has no combat scenes, no great vistas of troops. The time is 1943, as the Allies prepare the invasion of Sicily and desperately need a diversionary ploy to make the Germans suspect another invasion target. The solution is simple but ingenious: a dead man's body will be left in the sea to float ashore on the coast of Spain; made to look like a British pilot, he will be carrying papers suggesting an Allied attack on Greece. When the papers fall to the Nazis, they'll swallow the bogus story…or will they? The film's final third tracks an Irish spy for the Axis (Steven Boyd, in one of his first roles) as he travels to London to investigate loose ends.

Description

Clifton Webb stars in this fascinating account of a daring intelligence operation designed to mislead the Nazis prior to the 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily. In an effort to convince the Germans to redeploy their defenses, Lt. Commander Montagu (Webb) creates a false English officer and fabricates letters that indicate the British intend to land in Greece. Montagu than plants these documents on a dead man and orchestrates the "discovery" of this "officer" on the coast of Spain, Knowing the papers will fall into German hands. What follows is a taut cat-and mouse game as British Intelligence waits for Berlin to respond, then races to stay one step ahead of the Nazi agent dispatched to determine if the dead man is genuine. This true story of ingenious deception is a riveting tale of wartime espionage.

Customer Reviews:

FUN OLDER FILM.......2007-05-17

I really enjoy the 'behind the scenes' stories of WWII. This is a great movie depicting one of the real heroes.

Guile and Cunning..........2007-04-09

"The Man Who Never Was" is a nicely-done movie dramatization derived from the book of the same name by former British Intelligence Officer Ewan Montagu. Montagu (played in the movie by Clifton Webb) was tasked in 1943 to divert German forces from the defense of Sicily, the next Allied objective. Montagu and his team came up with the disturbing but unique idea of planting false papers on a dead body disguised as an Allied officer, then allowing the body to wash ashore in Fascist Spain in the hopes that the information would be passed to the Germans.

The first two thirds of the movie follows the efforts of Montagu's team to find a suitable body and prepare its legend as one Major William Martin, Royal Marines, carrying letters to high officers in the Mediterranean Theater. Amid the disruptions of blitz-torn London, the team deals with details such as procuring a special canister in which the body can be placed, packed in dry ice, for movement by submarine to the Spanish coast. The team invents a girlfriend for the young officer; a roommate (played by Gloria Grahame) of Montagu's secretary obligingly writes the love letters that the dead Martin will carry with him.

This operation, codenamed MINCEMEAT, was a high-risk venture in that there was no assurance that the body would wash ashore, that the materials would be passed to the Germans, or that the Germans would consider the documents credible. In the actual event, the success of the deception was not truly apparent until after the war. The last third of the movie fills this dramatic gap by having a fictional Irishman spying for the Germans (played by Stephen Boyd) check on Martin's bonafides in London. The team finds out about the spy late in the game and must persuade British Internal Security not to arrest him. An emotionally-charged meeting with the roommate, grieving over the loss of her real boyfriend, turns out to be the key to the spy's mission.

This movie is highly recommended as an entertaining and dramatic tale of wartime guile and cunning, based for the most part on a real life event.

The Man Who Never Was.......2007-03-08

An old-fashioned, well told tale of a true story from WWII. This movie tells the story of Major William Martin, a man who did not exist, yet made a significant contribution to the Allied war effort. Clifton Webb, a rather prissy actor, makes a very good, unsuspectedly cerebral Commander Montague, but Gloria Graham as a brash American librarian is the character who sticks with you ... her contribution to the war effort is unwitting and almost as important as Major Martin's. A great escape from a crappy news day movie, a journey back to another time.

Top notch espionage film.......2007-01-26

A very well-done telling of the ingenious plan to mislead the Nazis before the invasion of Sicily. It was audacious and elaborate but well-coordinated in its scope to stage the death of an important curiour and make sure his body and papers were found by the Germans in a circuitous manner not to draw suspicion. It is difficult to measure how well the plan worked but it did indeed have some impact when the Germans believed the ruse. It seems a difficult kind of story to tell in movie form but this film does it well. A top notch espionage film.

It's out on dvd .hurrah.......2006-09-06

I had been waiting for years for this gem of a
movie to make it to dvd.What stands out for me
is the brilliant British mind that could have
conceived of such an ingenious idea.Knowing that
this is a true story really packs a powerful
punch while you are watching it.This however
is not the only great British movie about a
true ww2 plot.If you enjoyed this movie then
I think you will also truly enjoy
" I Was Monty's Double".The actor who plays
field marshall Montgomery in the movie is the
actor who really was the double for Montgomery
during ww2.His name was Clifton James and he
wrote a book ( I Was Monty's Double) about his experience of pretending
to be Monty during ww2.This movie however is currently
only available on dvd at Amazon U.K.

Average customer rating:

FUN OLDER FILM
Guile and Cunning...
The Man Who Never Was
Top notch espionage film
It's out on dvd .hurrah

The Man Who Never Was
Starring: Clifton Webb , Gloria Grahame , Robert Flemyng , Josephine Griffin , and Stephen Boyd
Director: Ronald Neame
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD