Orders to Kill

A young American pilot taken off flying duty is put through espionage training and dropped into occupied France. The assignment is a single name: he is to kill an ordinary Paris lawyer suspected of selling radio operators to the Nazis. There is no hard proof. At a certain point Anthony Asquith drops the wartime suspense and moves to the question underneath it, what carrying out an order actually means and whether training to kill prepares anyone for it. Paul Massie and Irene Worth lead, with Eddie Albert and Lillian Gish alongside. The film took three BAFTAs in 1958, for British actress, screenplay and most promising newcomer, and caused a stir at Cannes the same year for what some read as an anti American tone.