COUNTER-ATTACK, a tense WW2 drama, came out in late April, 1945, twelve days before the war ended in Europe. Though well-reviewed, the slack box office of $1,200,000 was due to timing, with audiences not keen to celebrate VE-Day by watching another war film, movie battle fatigue that was reflected in the mediocre response to a number of combat pictures that showed up in 1945, ironically some of the best made during the conflict. *

The Soviet Union, 1942. Russian and German forces are both poised to attack across a river. While the Russians construct a bridge, hidden 20 inches below the surface, an advance unit penetrates German lines to seek information on their defenses and route of attack. Separated from his outfit, veteran ‘Alexei Kulkov’ (Paul Muni) and partisan guide ‘Lisa Elenko’ (Marguerite Chapman) are trapped in a barrage-blasted cellar with seven captured German soldiers. As they ponder which side will ‘rescue’ them, Kulkov interrogates the Nazis, one of whom is revealed as an intelligence officer. A battle of wits, will and exhaustion ensues.

Ably directed by Zoltan Korda (The Four Feathers, Sahara), John Howard Lawson’s screenplay was taken from a Broadway play done two years ealier by Janet and Philip Stevenson, in turn adapted from the Soviet play “Pobyeda” by Ilya Vershinin and Mikhail Ruderman.

Unlike his over-the-top scenery-gobbling in the same year’s A Song To Remember, Muni is in taut control here, Chapman low-key and effective (no phony romance or theatrics barge in) and the supporting ‘German’s are excellently put across, with notably sharp work from Herro Meller, Rudolph Anders, Ludwig Donath, Philip Van Zandt and Ivan Triesault. James Wong Howe’s fine cinematography is a strong asset to the claustrophobic mood.

With Larry Parks, Roman Bohnen, George Macready, Trevor Bardette, Hugh Beaumont, Virginia Christine, Ian Wolfe, Adeline De Walt Reynolds and Darren McGavin. 90 minutes.

* 1945 showcased a slate of excellent war films that didn’t command the public success they would have had earlier in the fight: They Were Expendable, The Story Of G.I. Joe, A Bell For Adano, A Walk In The Sun, Objective Burma!, Back To Bataan. Counter-Attack trailed them all, ranking 134th. It, and its crew, further suffered after the war when it was damned as one of the “pro-Russia” films cited by the Red-baiters. Writers Lawson and the Stevenson’s, actors Parks and Bohnen suffered from blacklisting.