Decision Before Dawn
Decision Before Dawn is a 1951 American war film directed by Anatole Litvak and starring Richard Basehart, Oskar Werner and Hans Christian Blech. It tells the story of the U.S. Army using potentially unreliable German prisoners of war to gather intelligence as clandestine "line-crossers" in the closing days of World War II. The film was adapted by Peter Viertel and Jack Rollens (uncredited) from the novel Call It Treason by George L. Howe. Decision Before Dawn was a critical success and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Plot
By late 1944, as the Allies march toward the Rhine, it is obvious that Germany will lose the war. American Colonel Devlin leads a military intelligence unit that enlists German POWs to cross into German territory and spy on their former comrades. The recruits includes "Tiger", a cynical mercenary, and "Happy", a young, idealistic medical student. Monique, a former resistance operative, trains Happy and others in espionage techniques.
Awards
Cast
More details
| author | Carl Zuckmayer Peter Viertel |
|---|---|
| award | National Board of Review: Top Ten Films |
| contentLocation | Germany |
| director | Anatole Litvak |
| editor | Dorothy Spencer |
| events | World War II |
| genre | western |
| keywords | allied advance from paris to the rhine french resistance german officer gestapo injured mannheim medical student military intelligence military intelligence corps panzer corps pow prisoner of war resistance rhine rhine river safe house toward the rhine waffen-ss war widow wehrmacht |
| musicBy | Franz Waxman |
| nomination | Academy Award for Best Film Editing Academy Award for Best Picture |
| producer | Anatole Litvak Frank McCarthy |
| recordedAt | Nuremberg |
| theme | spy war |