User Reviews

Based on the 1950 book of the same name by W. Stanley Moss, this is quite an entertaining war adventure film but it could have been a great deal better. It tells the story of the kidnapping of General Heinrich Kriepe, the commander of the German occupation force on Crete, by Moss, his Special Operations Executive (SOE) colleague Major Patrick Leigh Fermor and the Cretan resistance in April 1944. However, it approaches the material with a light touch, incorporating quite a bit of humour and often seeming like a "Boy's Own" adventure. I don't have any problem with this approach but it is not executed as well as I would have liked. The film was released under the rather more obvious title "Night Ambush" in the United States.

The script by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger is fairly good but there are a few structural problems. It was a mistake for the kidnapping to occur comparatively early in the film as the planning stages could have been much more interesting and it sometimes feels as if it has nowhere to go after that. The depiction of the kidnapping itself was apparently accurate but it was not depicted in a very exciting manner. After that, there is not much of a sense of suspense or tension as the two British officers and the Cretans evade the Nazi patrols comparatively easily. However, I did like the fact that there was a sense of mutual respect and admiration between the British and German forces, something which Powell and Pressburger explored in more depth in "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp". While the writing is not up to their usual high standard, the duo's direction is as deft as ever. The film looks beautiful and it makes great use of the beautiful scenery of the south of France. Unfortunately, this was the final film that they made together under their production company, the Archers, but they later collaborated on "They're a Weird Mob" in 1966 and "The Boy Who Turned Yellow" in 1972.

The film stars Dirk Bogarde in a characteristically excellent performance as Leigh Fermor, a colourful gentleman adventurer and scholar soldier of the old mould. Known as "Philedem" to the Greeks, he played a major role in helping to organise the Cretan resistance during the war. Bogarde brings all of the considerable charm and charisma at his disposal but Leigh Fermor was seemingly a larger than life figure and there are, at best, only a few hints of that in the script. Powell and Pressburger regular Marius Goring is very good as the honourable General Kriepe but I would have still preferred if their original choice Curd Jürgens had been cast instead. That said, Bogarde and Goring have good chemistry. Plus, their slight resemblance makes it easier to buy that Leigh Farmer could be mistaken for Kriepe in the dark than it would have been if the far larger Jürgens had been cast. David Oxley, probably best known for playing the small role of Sir Hugo Baskerville in "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1959), is fairly dull and forgettable as Moss. In contrast to Bogarde, he is mostly charisma free. Cyril Cusack is great as Captain Sandy Rendel, who was not washed for six months and has the pungent smell to prove it. Wolfe Morris, Michael Gough and Laurence Payne are very good as Leigh Farmer and Moss' Cretan allies George, Manoli and Andoni Zoidakis respectively, even though Gough's Greek accent is practically non-existent. The film also features nice small appearances from former SOE operative Christopher Lee and Richard Marner (both of whom got to make use of their fluent German), George Pravda and an uncredited David McCallum in his film debut.

Overall, this is a fun film belonging to the "men on a mission" World War II subgenre but I would have liked it if the Archers had bowed out on a stronger film.

Admittedly, had I seen this film when it came out, then I probably would have given it an 8 instead of a 6. But looking at it from an older point of view over 50 years later, I was really disappointed.

There are three categories of groups involved:

The British, who have great plans to capture a German general and really believe they can drive through 22 German checkpoints with the General having a fit on the floor of the car without being stopped. They have no real plan, no communication system and seem to think the whole thing is "jolly good fun."

Then we have the Greeks, who don't really understand that the whole thing is probably going to cause the SS troops to wipe out a few mountain villages in retaliation. They have nothing better to do than run around laughing and shouting, shaking hands and kissing everybody in sight. So instead of informing the group that about 500 German soldiers are just coming round the corner, it's better to greet long lost friends, before passing on the information. Top gag is of course having a drunken party in a house in the village in the night with a British officer in uniform eating a sheep's head at a table in the middle of the room. The place is filled with singing and dancing, the door isn't locked, they have no sentry .... Really makes the Greeks look completely incompetent and stupid. To say nothing of the British.

And last but not least we have the Germans, who don't even bother to stop the General's car, filled with strange bearded men not in German uniform, as it goes through one checkpoint after another. Really made the Germans look completely incompetent as well. Which they certainly weren't.

If you like this type of film, it can be watched as a relic of the past, but don't expect anything like logic or a real-life story; I had expected much more drama and far less incompetence combined with unintended ridiculous comedy.

"Night Ambush" qualifies as a minor but factual account about the April 1944 abduction of a high-ranking German general by the British with the aid of Crete resistance fighters. The writer & director combo Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, who made "One of Our Aircraft is Missing," based their screenplay on the 1952 book "Ill Met by Moonlight: The Abduction of General Kreipe" by W. Stanley Moss. British officer Major Patrick Leigh Fermor (Dirk Bogarde of "The Servant") steal ashore after dark and help the resistance capture Kreipe (Marius Goring of "The Red Shoes") and take him on a grueling journey into the mountains across Crete to a rendezvous with a British warship while the Germans scour the terrain in search of their commanding officer who was the top officer on the island of Crete. Ostensibly, there is not much combat action in this thriller about stealth, but the scenery looks spectacular. Michael Gough, who later gained fame as the butler in the Michael Keaton "Batman" movie makes an appearance as Andoni Zoidakis, while future "Dracula" Christopher Lee plays a German soldier. Competently made drama boasts its share of twists and turns in the narrative as our heroes toil on foot to meet the British destroyer that will transport Kreipe to Cairo for questioning. When everything is said and done, General Kreipe salutes Fermor and congratulates him for his daring escapade. The mutual respect and admiration between the British and the Germans was a theme that recurred throughout the war films of Powell and Pressburger. British cinematographer Christopher Challis lensed this atmospheric wartime thriller in black & white. Challis shot the World War II thriller The Battle of the River Plate (1956) for Powell and Pressburger, and the film was later retitled as "Pursuit of the Graf Spee.

even allowing for the fact that Ican take or leave Powell and Pressburger either as a team or working individually this is still pretty ho hum. It's not just that it's yet another true-life adventure torn from the annals of World War II - and boy, were they glad to get rid of it - it's more that it's exciting or engrossing enough to stand out from the others; it's not even that apart from Bogard and a badly miscast Cyril Cusack the only British actors involved are definitely minor league in the shape of Michael Gough and Wolf Morris, it's more that no two actors - and that includes Marius Goring - are able to give the impression that they are in the same film or often in the same scene. All in all it's something of an unintentional Greek tragedy.

"Ill Met by Moonlight," aka, "Night Ambush" is an unusual World War II film. It's one of many films about a special mission during the war, and it's one of many films about resistance and the underground. But, with both of these elements it also has some other less common aspects. First, it has the kidnapping of a German two-star general. Second, it's a rare look at the Greek underground in World War II. Third, it's about the widespread Greek resistance to German rule. This was the first such civilian resistance that Nazi Germany met in its conquests to that time. And, fourth, it's about a unique network that was established and operating during that time.

That network included a thousand or more Greek soldiers, 500 British soldiers, and hundreds of Cretan civilians. The military were men who couldn't be evacuated in time, and who weren't among those captured as the Allies were overrun by the Germans in 1941. The Cretan people hid these men in mountain hamlets and villages around the island. With the Cretan resistance fighters, this lot formed a loosely organized underground. The movie doesn't show it but alludes to the formidable hindrance the network was to the Germans. By clandestine radio, it kept in touch with British command in Egypt.

All of this makes for a most interesting wartime drama. It's not one of combat action, or even much resistance fighting. The killing that takes place is off screen and only alluded to. This is a movie about a calculated and well carried out ambush, kidnapping and flight from the enemy. The flight is aided by the natural mountainous terrain of Crete, and the collaboration with and support from people of the local villages and hamlets.

Some reviewers take exception to the almost cavalier attitude or persona of the lead characters, especially Dirk Bogarde, as Major Patrick Fermor. He is known to the local Cretans, and the Nazi secret police, as Philedem. Most of the British leaders have that sort of carefree air about them as well. They seem to mirror the easy-going, carefree demeanor and attitudes of the Cretans themselves. As this movie shows, they could move about quite easily without German detection. They knew their land and its rugged terrain that the enemy did not know. So, who is to say that it wasn't something like that? With advisers for the film and the source material, it's likely that life was like that for those people then and there.

The story is about a true event, based on a book, "Ill Met by Moonlight." That was a wartime diary of W. Stanley Moss's service in Crete. The original film title is the same as that of the book. It was renamed "Night Ambush" on release in America, and the film was cut by more than 10 minutes. I saw the original 104-minute British version.

David Oxley plays Moss. Major Fermor requested his assignment for the 1944 mission to kidnap Major General Kreipe (played by Marius Goring). Kreipe commands 30,000 Germans on the island. That includes a paratrooper division that was the main assault force for the Germans in taking the island. So, the Brits now want to kidnap the Kreipe to humiliate the Germans and boost Allied morale. The operation was planned by British intelligence and carried out by the mixed underground.

This may be one of those instances when it was more difficult to shoot a movie in a place than to carry out a war there. In 1957, the roadway system in Crete probably did not yet lend itself to the movement of huge film crews and equipment to mountainous areas for filming. So, this film was shot instead in similar terrain that was more easily accessible. The mountain scenes were shot in the Maritime Alps of Italy and France. The coastal scenes were shot along uninhabited and rugged spots that could still be found in 1957 along the French Riviera.

This is an excellent movie. It's a deserved testimonial to the Cretan people. And, it's a nice story of a little-known highly successful Allied coup during WW II. It should be in any serious World War II film collection.

For those interested in history, here's a little more that the film doesn't cover. The German invasion of Crete was called "Operation Mercury." It was the first large airborne assault in history. It was also the first time German troops met with mass resistance from a civilian population. The German parachute had only one riser, so it couldn't be controlled. And, the German jumped without their rifles which were dropped separately in bundles. Before many could get to their weapons, they were met by the Allied underground and the civilians. The latter were armed mostly with pitchforks, sledgehammers and other crude weapons. But they exacted a huge toll on the Germans. As a result, Hitler forbad future paratrooper assaults in the war. The Americans and British had far superior chutes, and they jumped with their weapons. So, the Allies had many successful airborne assaults during the war.

After capturing Crete, the Germans carried out widespread reprisals against the civilians. Between June 2, 1941, and August of 1944, more than 1,000 Cretans were killed in large shootings by firing squads. Homes were looted and villages were destroyed. German generals Bruno Brauer and Friedrich-Wilhelm Muller ("The Butcher of Crete") were the commanders who ordered most of these reprisals. After the war, both were tried for war crimes and executed.