Just as the British film industry treated Australia with more respect, feeling and accuracy than Hollywood, so was the case with Canada. We see Eskimos, French Canadian trappers with flannos, Scotch trappers, sophisticated city folk, soldiers, Mounties, farmers, writers. Between them the manage to trap a small group of Nazis – but only just.
As if in response to the brave, sympathetic Germans in The Spy in Black, the submariners here are vicious Nazis, constantly hi Hitler-ing and talking about world domination, with Eric Portman’s leader being cold and humourless, and shooting a mother Eskimo with a baby. But they’re still the protagonists, bravely fighting their way home, surrounded by enemies, sticking to their convictions (well, mostly - there’s one nice German, a baker tempted to stay). I loved it how the Germans were always foisting their doctrine on the others eg Portman tries to get Olivier on to Mein Kampf. So basically they're still sympathetic.
The structure of the film consists of four main encounters: with some trappers (Laurence Olivier, Finlay Currie), a religious community (Anton Walbrook), a writer (Lesley Howard), and an AWOL soldier. The best of these are the first two, both containing some brilliant propaganda and effective death scenes: Walbrook and Olivier sticking up for Canada, the deaths of Olivier and Neil McGinnis (the good German). The sequence with Leslie Howard ended a bit silly-ly with him storming towards a German getting shot at – being brave isn’t the same as being stupid. But it's beautifully shot, with great location footage, and a superlative cast.
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