Undercover (1943 film)
| Undercover (1943 film) | |
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2010 DVD release cover
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| Directed by | Sergei Nolbandov |
| Produced by |
Michael Balcon S. C. Balcon |
| Screenplay by |
John Dighton Monja Danischewsky Sergei Nolbandov (uncredited) Milosh Sekulich (uncredited) |
| Story by | George Slocombe Milosh Sekulich (uncredited) Sergei Nolbandov (uncredited) |
| Starring |
John Clements Mary Morris Michael Wilding Stephen Murray Tom Walls Stanley Baker Godfrey Tearle |
| Music by | Frederic Austin |
| Cinematography | Wilkie Cooper |
| Edited by | Eileen Bolan |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by |
United Artists (UK) Columbia Pictures (USA) |
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Release date
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Running time
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80 min |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
Undercover is a major 1943 war film produced by Ealing Studios in London, originally titled Chetnik. It was filmed in Wales and released on 27 July 1943. The subject was the Yugoslav guerrilla movement in German-occupied Yugoslavia loosely based on the Draza Mihailovich resistance movement. The movie was produced by Sir Michael Balcon and directed by Sergei Nolbandov. It starred John Clements as Milosh Petrovitch, Mary Morris as Anna Petrovitch, his wife, Stephen Murray as Stephan Petrovitch, his brother, Michael Wilding as Constantine, and Stanley Baker as Petar. The movie was re-released in the United States in 1944 by Columbia Pictures under the title Underground Guerrillas. The Ealing movie was similar to the 20th Century Fox wartime film Chetniks! The Fighting Guerrillas (1943) made in the U.S. The plot revolves around a resistance movement that emerges in Yugoslavia after the German invasion in 1941. The guerrillas are able to blow up trains, engage in sabotage, and to battle German troops. In the final scene, the guerrillas are shown going into the Serbian mountains to continue their resistance struggle until the German forces are driven out of the country. The movie was released on DVD on 25 January 2010 by Optimum Home Entertainment in the UK.
The film is based on the Yugoslav resistance movement under the command of General Draza Mihailovich. But politics overtook the situation because Mihailovich and the Royalists were about to be abandoned and betrayed by the British government - as parts of the Chetnik movement co-operated with the Nazis - in favor of the Communist and Stalinist leader Josip Broz Tito at the time. Speaking in the British Parliament on 22 February 1944, the then Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, said: "General Mihailovic, I much regret to say, drifted gradually into position where his commanders made accommodations with Italian and German troops…"
The screenplay, by John Dighton and Monja Danischewsky, was accordingly amended and the movie re-edited. It was a black and white war movie, 80 minutes in length, that focused on the Petrovitch family in Belgrade, Serbia. One brother, Captain Milosh Petrovitch, a Yugoslav military officer, played by John Clements, emerges as a Serbian guerrilla who forms an anti-Nazi resistance movement in the mountains of Serbia. The other brother, Dr. Stephan Petrovitch, played by Stephen Murray, is a physician in the Belgrade Municipal Hospital who acts as a quisling or collaborator to obtain information for the guerrillas. German General von Staengel, played by Godfrey Tearle, does not suspect that Stephan is an undercover agent for the Serbian guerrillas.
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Wikipedia