Ill Met by Moonlight , also known as
Night Ambush, is a film by the
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
writer-director-producer team of
Michael Powell and Emeric PressburgerThe British film-making partnership of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, also known as The Archers, made a series of influential films in the 1940s and 1950s, and in were recognized for their contributions to British cinema with the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award, the most prestigious award...
, the last film they made together through their Archers production company. The film, which stars
Dirk BogardeSir Dirk Bogarde was a British actor and novelist. Initially a matinee star in such films as Doctor in the House and other Rank Organisation pictures, Bogarde later acted in art house films like Death in Venice...
and features
Marius GoringMarius Goring CBE was an English stage and cinema actor. He is most often remembered for the four films he did with Powell & Pressburger, particularly as Conductor 71 in A Matter of Life and Death and as Julian Craster in The Red Shoes...
, David Oxley, and
Cyril CusackCyril James Cusack was an Irish actor, who appeared in more than 90 films.-Early life:Cusack was born in Durban, Natal, South Africa, the son of Alice Violet , an actress, and James Walter Cusack, a sergeant in the Natal mounted police. His parents separated when he was young and his mother took...
, is based on the book
Ill Met by Moonlight: The Abduction of General Kreipe by
W. Stanley MossIvan William Stanley Moss MC , known as Bill or Billy, served with the Coldstream Guards and SOE and was a best-selling author in the 1950s. He also travelled around the world....
, an account of real events in the author's service on
CreteCrete is the largest of the Greek islands and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km²...
in
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Ill Met by Moonlight , also known as
Night Ambush, is a film by the
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
writer-director-producer team of
Michael Powell and Emeric PressburgerThe British film-making partnership of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, also known as The Archers, made a series of influential films in the 1940s and 1950s, and in were recognized for their contributions to British cinema with the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award, the most prestigious award...
, the last film they made together through their Archers production company. The film, which stars
Dirk BogardeSir Dirk Bogarde was a British actor and novelist. Initially a matinee star in such films as Doctor in the House and other Rank Organisation pictures, Bogarde later acted in art house films like Death in Venice...
and features
Marius GoringMarius Goring CBE was an English stage and cinema actor. He is most often remembered for the four films he did with Powell & Pressburger, particularly as Conductor 71 in A Matter of Life and Death and as Julian Craster in The Red Shoes...
, David Oxley, and
Cyril CusackCyril James Cusack was an Irish actor, who appeared in more than 90 films.-Early life:Cusack was born in Durban, Natal, South Africa, the son of Alice Violet , an actress, and James Walter Cusack, a sergeant in the Natal mounted police. His parents separated when he was young and his mother took...
, is based on the book
Ill Met by Moonlight: The Abduction of General Kreipe by
W. Stanley MossIvan William Stanley Moss MC , known as Bill or Billy, served with the Coldstream Guards and SOE and was a best-selling author in the 1950s. He also travelled around the world....
, an account of real events in the author's service on
CreteCrete is the largest of the Greek islands and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km²...
in
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. The title is a quotation from Shakespeare's
A Midsummer Night's DreamA Midsummer Night's Dream is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare. It was suggested by "The Knight's Tale" from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales and written around 1594 to 1596...
.
Plot
During
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the
GreekGreece , officially the Hellenic Republic , is a country in southeastern Europe, situated on the southern end of the Balkan Peninsula....
Mediterranean island of
CreteCrete is the largest of the Greek islands and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km²...
is occupied by the Nazis. A group of
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
officers led by
Major Patrick Leigh FermorSir Patrick 'Paddy' Michael Leigh Fermor DSO OBE is a British author, scholar and soldier, who played a prominent role behind the lines in the Battle of Crete during World War II...
(
Dirk BogardeSir Dirk Bogarde was a British actor and novelist. Initially a matinee star in such films as Doctor in the House and other Rank Organisation pictures, Bogarde later acted in art house films like Death in Venice...
) land on the island and, with the help of local
resistanceThe Cretan resistance was a resistance movement against Nazi Germany by the residents of the Greek island of Crete during World War II. Part of the larger Greek Resistance, it lasted from May 20, 1941, when the German Wehrmacht invaded the island in the Battle of Crete, until the end of the...
in April 1944, kidnap German General
Heinrich KreipeKarl Heinrich Georg Ferdinand Kreipe was a German general, who served in World War II. He is most famous for his spectacular abduction by British and Cretan resistance fighters from occupied Crete in April 1944....
(
Marius GoringMarius Goring CBE was an English stage and cinema actor. He is most often remembered for the four films he did with Powell & Pressburger, particularly as Conductor 71 in A Matter of Life and Death and as Julian Craster in The Red Shoes...
), the commander of the island. They take Kreipe across very rough country to a secluded cove on the far side of the island, where they are picked up and taken to
CairoCairo is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab World. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a center of the region's political and cultural life...
.
Cast
- Dirk Bogarde
Sir Dirk Bogarde was a British actor and novelist. Initially a matinee star in such films as Doctor in the House and other Rank Organisation pictures, Bogarde later acted in art house films like Death in Venice...
as Major Patrick "Paddy" Leigh FermorSir Patrick 'Paddy' Michael Leigh Fermor DSO OBE is a British author, scholar and soldier, who played a prominent role behind the lines in the Battle of Crete during World War II...
aka "Philedem"
- Marius Goring
Marius Goring CBE was an English stage and cinema actor. He is most often remembered for the four films he did with Powell & Pressburger, particularly as Conductor 71 in A Matter of Life and Death and as Julian Craster in The Red Shoes...
as Major General Heinrich KreipeKarl Heinrich Georg Ferdinand Kreipe was a German general, who served in World War II. He is most famous for his spectacular abduction by British and Cretan resistance fighters from occupied Crete in April 1944....
- David Oxley as Captain W. Stanley "Billy" Moss
Ivan William Stanley Moss MC , known as Bill or Billy, served with the Coldstream Guards and SOE and was a best-selling author in the 1950s. He also travelled around the world....
, M.C.
- Dimitri Andreas as Niko Soldan Emeris
- Cyril Cusack
Cyril James Cusack was an Irish actor, who appeared in more than 90 films.-Early life:Cusack was born in Durban, Natal, South Africa, the son of Alice Violet , an actress, and James Walter Cusack, a sergeant in the Natal mounted police. His parents separated when he was young and his mother took...
as Captain Sandy Rendel
- Laurence Payne
Laurence Payne was a British actor.Payne was born in London and educated at Tottenham Grammar School. He later worked as a clerk in the City of London before studying for the stage at the Old Vic Dramatic School. Payne made his professional debut at the Old Vic Theatre in 1939 and remained with...
as Manoli
- Wolfe Morris as George
- Michael Gough
Michael Gough is a British character actor who has appeared in over 100 films. He is perhaps best known to international audiences by his recurring role as Alfred Pennyworth in the first four movies of the revived Batman franchise, beginning with Batman .-Early life and career:Gough was born in...
as Andoni Zoidakis
- John Cairney
John Cairney is a Scottish film and television actor.-Partial filmography:*Ill Met by Moonlight *A Night to Remember *The Flesh and the Fiends *Victim...
as Elias
- Rowland Bartrop as Micky Akoumianakis
- Brian Worth as Stratis Saviolkis
- Paul Stassino as Yanni Katsias
- Adeeb Assaly as Zahari
Cast notes:
- Christopher Lee
Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE, CStJ is an English actor. He initially portrayed villains and became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films...
and David McCallumDavid Keith McCallum, Jr. is a Scottish actor and the son of orchestral leader David McCallum, Sr. He is best known for his roles as Illya Kuryakin, a Russian-born secret agent, in the 1960s television series The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and Dr...
have small parts in the film, Lee as a German officer in the dentist scene, and McCallum, in his film debut, as a sailor on the ship that picks the group up. Lee's part was edited out in the re-release of the film. There's also a "John Houseman" in the cast, but it appears that this is not the well-known actor, director and advertising icon John HousemanJohn Houseman was an English actor and film producer who became known for his highly publicized collaboration with director Orson Welles from their days in the Federal Theatre Project through to the production of Citizen Kane...
.
- Marius Goring had appeared in three other Powell and Pressburger films: The Spy in Black
The Spy in Black was the first collaboration between the British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. They were brought together by Alexander Korda to make this World War I spy thriller by Joseph Storer Clouston into a film...
, A Matter of Life and Death and The Red ShoesThe Red Shoes is a British feature film about ballet, written, directed and produced by the team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, known collectively as The Archers...
. Goring replaced Curt JürgensCurd Gustav Andreas Gottlieb Franz Jürgens was a German-Austrian stage and film actor. He was usually billed in English-speaking films as Curt Jurgens.-Early life:...
, who was the original choice to play the part of General Kreipe.
Production
Ill Met By Moonlight was filmed at
Pinewood StudiosPinewood Studios is a major British film studio situated in Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire. Approximately west of Central London on what was the estate of Heatherden Hall, the studios were created in 1934 by Charles Boot and built within 12 months by the Henry Boot Company of Sheffield. Boot drew his...
in England, with location shooting in the
Alpes-MaritimesAlpes-Maritimes is a department in the extreme southeast corner of France.- History : was created by Octavian as a Roman military district in 14 BCE, and became a full Roman province in the middle of the 1
st century CE with its capital first at Cemenelum and subsequently at Embrun...
in
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
and
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
, and on the Côte d'Azur in France.
Parody
The story was affectionately parodied by
Spike MilliganTerence Alan Patrick Seán Milligan KBE , known as Spike Milligan, was an Irish comedian, writer, musician, poet and playwright. Milligan was the co-creator and the principal writer of The Goon Show, in which he also performed. Aside from his well-known comedy and poetry, Milligan did some painting...
in the
1957The year 1957 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 1957.
-Events:*January 6 - Elvis Presley makes final appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show....
Goon Show episode, "Ill Met by Goonlight".
External links