Operation Crossbow

Late in the Second World War, British intelligence is tracking the guided missiles Germany is developing. Odd structures in aerial photographs point to the facility at Peenemünde. Three engineers are sent in under German identities. The subject is not the thrill of espionage but the fragility of a false identity. The papers given to the agents belong to real dead men, which creates a problem nobody calculated: someone who knew them might turn up. The best passage in the film is where that coincidence happens. The form joins the war film to the spy thriller; the second half takes place entirely inside the facility and the pace is set by how long they can stay there. The production rests on a real programme: Crossbow was the name of the Allied operation aimed at German missile production, and Peenemünde really was bombed. The infiltration strand is fiction. Despite her prominence at the front of the film, Sophia Loren appears in a short section; the producer Carlo Ponti wanted his wife's name at the top of the poster, and the mismatch between the marketing and the film was criticised. Michael Anderson directs. George Peppard and Trevor Howard are in the cast. Who it is for: viewers who like sixties war and espionage films. Who it is not for: anyone coming for Loren; her screen time is very short.