Uncertain Glory

Occupied France. A man convicted of theft and murder escapes the guillotine when a bombing raid hits the prison, but the inspector who caught him the first time finds him again soon enough. Meanwhile the Gestapo is holding a hundred Frenchmen hostage over an act of sabotage. The convict puts a proposal to the inspector: let him confess to the sabotage, and the hundred go free. Directed by Raoul Walsh, the film has Errol Flynn as the convict and Paul Lukas as the inspector. It was made while the war was still on and does something different from the propaganda pictures of the time: its hero is untrustworthy from beginning to end. The telling keeps the man's intention uncertain right to the finish. It is not a film that glorifies dying; it is about how a person's calculation changes.