ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT

This 1957 film set in wartime Crete, made by the eminent partnership of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, is very much a lightweight affair.

The plot is simple: some British officers, led by Dirk Bogarde, kidnap the top German general on the island, and then they have to get him onto a ship to take him to Cairo. 

This mission comes across more as an escapade since it has no military value, and seems to have been dreamt up by Bogarde simply to embarrass the Germans.

The Brits in this film come across as ex-public schoolboys on a jolly jape. Maybe because I have a very low tolerance for this sort of thing, the film totally failed to charm me. Bogarde’s air of nonchalance throughout irritated me like hell.

I would imagine that life under German rule wasn’t much fun for the Cretans but you wouldn’t get that impression from this film. All the locals we see seem to be having a great time of it.

At one point the Germans circulate leaflets threatening reprisals on the locals unless the general is returned safely.  This elicits no reaction from Bogarde, so I guess when he is safely on his way to Cairo at the end of the film we are just meant to have forgotten this.

There is really no action, or tension or sense of danger, with nothing much at stake it seems.

The film benefits from having been shot on location, and I enjoyed the black and white cinematography. 

Otherwise, disappointing.

RATING: x Find Something Better To Do