COMMANDOS STRIKE AT DAWN arrived at the end of 1942, one of the year’s flurry of ‘fight back’ movies. They took place in embattled England and China, occupied France and the Philippines, and Axis-threatened Morocco (Casablanca) and Panama.This one, with a screenplay by Irwin Shaw off a C.S. Forester short story, was set in Norway. Forest and inlet locations in British Columbia served ably, with branches of the Canadian services lending ample support of troop and equipment. Though the catchy title did obvious publicity duty for emergent specialist outfits like Britain’s commandos and the US Rangers (the former figuring in the slam-bang climax), the heart and soul of the story was a salute to the valiant civilian resistance offered by the Norwegian people. *

Hitler’s forces grabbed Norway in the Spring of 1940. In a small coastal fishing village, the residents suffer under their brutal Nazi rule, with looting, forced labor, torture and executions their share of ‘The New World Order’. A few cooperate, but others start to fight back with acts of sabotage. ‘Eric Thorsen’ (Paul Muni), a widower with a young daughter, helps organize local resistance, and eventually he and a few companions make a daring small boat escape across the North Sea to England. Eric contacts a British naval officer he knew before the war, and helps lead a commando raid back to his village to knock out a German airfield being constructed nearby. Freedom’s only there if you’re willing to keep it, and sometimes that takes more than talk.

Hard-nosed director John Farrow had scored a big hit with Wake Island, one of the early “We’re in it Now” combat rousers released after Pearl Harbor. Aided by William C. Mellor’s cinematography and a score from Louis Gruenberg’s score that earned an Oscar nomination, he guided this to a decent measure of success, the $4,300,000 gross placing at #61 when the year’s receipts were tallied. Muni and the cast are engaged and effective with the exception of two dull performances, one from the usually interesting Cedric Hardwicke as a stuffy British admiral, the other from the hardly ever interesting Alexander Knox as a coldly cruel Nazi captain.

As with Wake Island, Farrow saw that his special effects contingent delivered full-throttle mayhem; many of the explosions look so powerful that they no doubt rattled the actors, stuntmen and Canadian troops (playing Brit commandos); Farrow was noted for playing more than a little rough; many actors detested him.

100 minutes, with Anna Lee, Lillian Gish (49, back after a nine-year absence), Ray Collins (a good guy for once), Robert Coote, Rosemary DeCamp, Ann Carter (charmingly un-mannered six year old as Muni’s daughter), Richard Derr, Erville Alderson, Elisabeth Fraser, Rod Cameron, Louis Jean Heydt, George Macready (debut), Lloyd Bridges, Walter Sande and Philip Van Zandt.

* Fight on, Norway!—Edge Of Darkness, 633 Squadron, The Heroes Of Telemark, Max Manus: Man of War, The 12th Man, Narvik.