Rent Ill Met by Moonlight (1957)

Special Operations. - Ill Met by Moonlight review by Steve

Faithful adaptation of a memoir by Captain Stanley Moss about an audacious special operation exercise on Crete in WWII. British agents imbedded in the island's resistance movement kidnap a General of the occupying Nazi army and smuggle him across the island through a manhunt, before making their escape by sea to Egypt.

Dirk Bogarde plays Patrick Fermer as a most debonaire leader of the enterprise. David Oxley plays Stanley Moss. The Cretan resistance performs a supporting role, with much of the drama focusing on the mind games between the British officers and the General (Marius Goring) as they negotiate the photogenic mountains.

This was the last film directed by Powell and Pressburger together, and Michael Powell later expressed his disappointment in the outcome. The problem today is principally the bucolic Greek resistance is presented in part as comic relief, mostly played by British actors. Though the script is respectful of the Cretan's bravery and sacrifice.

But this is also an exciting and imaginative war film of an astonishingly intrepid operation. The mountain scenery is dramatically photographed in b&w in gorgeous Vistavision, augmented by Cretan folk music. Apparently Fermer loved Bogarde's charismatic portrayal, of a gentleman hero who functions on a regime of adrenaline and ouzo, apparently without fear.