Michael Goodliffe

In 1944, After the Norwegian resistance leader Royal Norwegian Navy Lieutenant Erik Bergman (George Chakiris) travels to Great Britain to report the location of a German V-2 rocket fuel plant, the Royal Air Force's No. 633 Squadron is assigned to destroy it. The only reason Germans have not been able to deploy their V2's in the war is because they don't have enough rocket fuel. If this plant is left as is, the D Day invasion could be blown up to smithereens. The squadron is led by Wing Commander Roy Grant (Cliff Robertson), a former Eagle Squadron pilot (an American serving in the RAF before the US entered the war). The factory will start shipping fuel in 18 days, so Roy has 17 days to train his squadron for this mission. Roy is to train his squadron at a valley in Scotland that mimics the entry to the fjord but is not as difficult to navigate as the actual fjord. Squad includes Group Captain Don Barrett (Donald Houston), Squadron Leader Frank Adams (Michael Goodliffe), Flight Lieutenant Gillibrand, Australian (John Meillon), Squadron Leader Scott (John Bonney), Flying Officer Evans (John Church), Flight Lieutenant Nigel (Sean Kelly), Flight Lieutenant Singh (Julian Sherrier), Flight Lieutenant Frank (Geoffrey Frederick), Flight Lieutenant Jones (Johnny Briggs) The plant is in a seemingly impregnable location beneath an overhanging cliff at the end of a long, narrow fjord lined with numerous anti-aircraft guns. The only way to destroy the plant is by bombing the cliff until it collapses and buries the facility, a job for 633 Squadron's fast and maneuverable De Havilland Mosquitos. The squadron trains in Scotland, where there are narrow glens similar to the fjord. There, Grant is introduced to Bergman's sister, Hilde (Maria Perschy). They are attracted to each other, despite Grant's aversion to wartime relationships. The Norwegian resistance is tasked with destroying the anti-aircraft defenses of the facility immediately before the scheduled attack. When unexpected German reinforcements arrive (Bergman is informed of this by his colleagues in the resistance), Bergman returns to Norway to try to gather more forces. Air Vice Marshal Davies refuses to delay the mission day, and Bergman insists that there is no way that the Brits can land any more re-enforcement by the way of land or water to neutralize the German guns. The Germans attack the air base causing loss of life and equipment, but Roy is able to re-group quickly. One plane is lost during training due to the difficult maneuvers involved. Roy spends time with Hilde after Bergman returns to Norway. However, Bergman is captured while transporting desperately needed weapons, taken to Gestapo headquarters and tortured for information. Since Bergman knows too much, he must be silenced before he breaks. Grant and newly married Pilot Officer Bissell (Scott Finch) are sent in with a single Mosquito to bomb the Gestapo building. Though they are successful, their shot-up Mosquito fighter-bomber crashes on its return (the landing gear doesn't work properly as it is all shot up), and Bissell is wounded and becomes blind. A tearful Hilde thanks Grant for ending her brother's suffering. Roy says his goodbyes to Hilde and leaves, as he knows he will most probably not survive the mission. Still worried, Air Vice-Marshal Davis (Harry Andrews) decides to move up the attack to the next day. The ammunition being used are Earthquake bombs which will topple the overhanging cliff on top of the fuel factory and bury it under rubble. The pilots are worried that their planes might be in danger from the explosion of bomb from the plane in front of them. 12 bombs are required to transfer enough force to topple the cliff. The men don't know what the factory makes, but Favis assures them that this is a critical mission. The resistance will attack at 0630 hours and the squadron is to enter the fjord between 0655 and 0705 hrs. However, the resistance fighters are ambushed and killed, leaving the defenses still intact. The resistance are not able to radio that their attack has failed, but they miss a critical check in point with London as well. Davis gets an intelligence call that the Germans ambushed the resistance fighters. Although Grant is given the option of aborting, he decides to press on. Many aircraft are lost to anti-aircraft fire and the remaining are attacked by the German air force after they drop their bombs. Many aircraft fly their planes into the cliff, after being hit and damaged. 9 aircraft are lost to score 6 direct hits and only 1 bomb is left. The last bomb budges the mountain, and it falls on top of the factory, burying it completely. The factory is destroyed at the cost of the entire squadron, though a few crews are able to ditch in the fjord. Grant crash-lands but a local man helps Grant's navigator, Flight Lieutenant Hoppy Hopkinson (Angus Lennie), pull the wounded wing commander from the burning wreckage. Back in Britain, Davis tells a fellow officer who is aghast at the losses, "You can't kill a squadron."

A young man named Mark Lewis (Carle Boehm) walks the streets of London, England with a 16mm camera turned on and hidden from sight. He approaches a prostitute on the street where she takes him back to her room. Once there, she looks towards him and becomes terribly frightened. That night back in his flat, Mark views the film he took of him killing the prostitute. The next morning, he films the police investigation of her murder for a documentary that he is making. Mark works as a focus puller at a small film studio, but for extra money he takes girlie pictures above a corner cigar store. Back at his apartment house, he meets Helen Stephens (Anna Massey), a young woman who lives with her blind mother (Maxine Audley) in the downstairs flat. Taking a curious liking to Mark, Helen visits his flat, which has a projection room and a photographic lab. Mark tells Helen that while he works at a local film studio, he wants to become a film director. Mark shows Helen black-and-white films that were taken of him when he was a child. She becomes horrified to see that his scientist father used him as a guinea pig in various experiments, taking movies of him crying while watching a man-woman couple have sex nearby and screaming when his father wakes him up by throwing a lizard on his bed. Mark tells Helen that his whole childhood was filmed; that his father was interested in the reactions of fear to the nervous system. After a days work at the film studio, the understudy Vivian (Moira Shearer) stays behind for a secret rendezvous with Mark, who has promised to give her a screen test for his documentary. Mark turns on his 16mm camera. A blade extended from the tripod is aimed directly at her head. Vivian screams.... The next day her body is discovered at the studio. Mark films the police investigation. Mark promises Helen he will take pictures for a children's book she is writing. They go out on a date. She makes him leave his camera behind and for the first time, Mark seems at ease and to be enjoying himself and Helen's company. Afterwords, Helen kisses Mark goodnight and they both go back to their respective flats. He goes home to his upstairs flat and turns on the projector, not knowing that Mrs. Stevens is there. While watching the murder of Vivian he committed on the previous night, he is a little disappointed that Vivian's face does not have the right expression of terror that he is seeking. Mrs. Stevens startles him with her presence. Being blind, she doesn't know what Mark was screening, but she is suspicious of him nevertheless. Mark tries talking to Mrs. Stevens that he was only screening a loaned film from the studio, but he quickly realizes that there is no use to trying to con her. He promises Mrs. Stevens that he will never film Helen and put her in danger. Mrs. Stevens tells Mark to get psychological help. At the studios, Mark speaks to Dr. Rosen (Martin Miller), a psychiatrist who knew his late father. After a discussion, Mark finds out that the cure for a scoptophiliac (one who obtains sexual pleasure by looking at erotic objects or pictures, nude women, sexual intercourse acts, etc) will take at least two years... far too long for Mark. The police detectives investigating the murders of the prostitute and Vivian become suspicious of this conversation. They start to tail Mark. He knows that he is being followed, but he goes to take pictures of the model Millie (Pamela Green) above the cigar store. Later, the detectives find her dead. Helen enters Mark's flat, She turns on the film projector and sees Vivian's murder. Mark returns and confessed his crimes. He shows her the blade on the camera and an attached mirror so his victims can seem themselves as they die. The police then arrive to arrest Mark as he films them. Then he turns the camera on himself and runs into the blade, seeing his own scared face in the mirror as he dies.

In WW2 London, a writer falls in love with the wife of a British civil servant but both men suspect her of infidelity with yet another man. In war-torn London, Maurice Bendrix (Van Johnson) falls in love with neighbor Sarah Miles (Deborah Kerr). They begin an illicit romance behind Sarah's husband's back. While war does not last forever, neither does love in this existentialist tale. —Robert Bole <rjbmbv@teleport.com>