I have loved this film from the first time I saw it in 1977. Great music, amazing story and competent acting (Anton Diffring was brilliant and very, very scary just as Heydrich was supposed to be). I had to find out more about the story and, to my surprise, found out that it is almost completely true ( gun jamming, Heydrich dying ten days later, grassed up by one of their own, killing dozens of germans in the church, both committing suicide at the end etc etc). I noticed previous comments about this film have queried whether it was worth the sacrifice of thousands of innocent people to assassinate one man, namely, Heydrich. Well let me just fill you in on this monster ( The butcher of Prague, The Hangman ). It was Heydrich that was mainly responsible for the 'Final Solution' and in all probability 11,000,000 Jews would have been murdered if he had lived. Also he alone would have been responsible for the 'General Ost Plan', Hitlers determination to exterminate 30,000,000 ( yes 30,000,000 ) Slavs in Russia & Eastern Europe. One last point - Leningrad & Stalingrad would certainly have been German victories if Heydrich had lived. 40% of the wehrmacht (tanks and artillery) were produced in Czech protectorate factories. This production fell by 70% after Heydrich's death, and not surprisingly lead to the collapse of the Russian divisions, who relied mostly on the weaponry produced in Czechoslovakia. He was also in charge of the SD spying network which was incredibly successful.
Make up your own mind - great film though.
Make up your own mind - great film though.