The Enemy General (1960)

Playing the title role in The Enemy General is Dutch actor John Van Dreelan who played a few Nazis during his career. Van Dreelan is the worst kind of Nazi around, one who massacred a big chunk of the population of a certain French village where Van Johnson of the OSS and Jean-Pierre Aumont are operating. During one operation Dany Carrel who is giving Johnson a little wartime morale booster is killed.But now Johnson has a different assignment. Van Dreelan is being held as part of the plot against Hitler and he's scheduled to be shot. Through his French mistress Francoise Prevost, Van Dreelan's let the Allies know that he can help them out with their intelligence if they can liberate him before he faces the firing squad. That's the assignment Johnson and Aumont draw and they hate it. But they do it.What was dumb here was why when they learned Van Dreelan was acting as a double agent they didn't just shoot him is beyond me. And the mistress while they were at it. Still Johnson and Aumont insist on doing the mission. Answer, because it made for an exciting climax shootout.Despite what the cast knew was a dumb plot gambit they all perform to their best and the climax is a nice one.You have to remember that this is a Sam Katzman production and perhaps even with location shooting and some major stars, Katzman still isn't exactly careful with his stories.

Companion piece to the Katzman/Van Johnson The LAST BLITZKIEG, the pair seem to represent the trash generating mass producer's only ventures off shore. Straight faced account of WW2 French Marquis men Johnson (!) and Aumont rescuing from Orleans Prison a German General condemned to death after the Von Staufenberg plot. Is he what he seems? Pale comparison with ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT.Emott's location photography of Paris and surroundings in crisp black and white outclasses the other elements. Feeble action."There is no man so low that a woman or a dog cannot love him" Dostoivesky indeed!

That's probably one of the few good Sam Katzman productions I have ever seen. There are not a lot of them; the most known is EARTH VS FLYING SAUCERS. This 1960 movie directed by the prolific George Sherman is a fairly good war actioner, which takes place in France, during WW2, in the Alpes, where a group a french underground fighters, helped by an American member of the OSS, capture a German general who wants to give some information to the allies in London. Hot stuff. But is the general really a traitor?I did not expect so much from this Columbia production. No so cheap, after all. Van Johnson and Jean Pierre Aumont give here good performances; And let's not forget some other french second rate characters, such as Jacques Marin, who always plays " the good french" in American movies. See John Frankenheimer's THE TRAIN, for instance.That proves that Sam Katzman can make good movies when he wants to.About George Sherman, as Joseph Kane, he began his carrier in the late 30's, directing B westerns for Republic Pictures, and not only westerns, before going to Columbia Pictures, and continuing in Universal Studios, where he made here his most interesting films, especially westerns, such as WAR ARROW, DAWN AT SOCORRO, CHIEF CRAZY HORSE, BATTLE AT APACHE PASS and many other good features, that I have in my library. All of them made for Universal.But after his Universal engagement, he seems to have lost himself, in some corny stuff, except perhaps TREASURE OF PANCHO VILLA, made for RKO pictures; a very good western, starring Rory Calhoun and Gilbert Roland.George Sherman's last stand will be the superb BIG JAKE, Maureen O' Hara's nearly last picture too, and his bad guys gallery in the opening sequence, where they are presented one by one. But that's another story and another comment.Getting back to ENEMY GENERAL, take it if you can. Don't be afraid by Sam Katzman's name in the credits. Don't turn the TV set off!!