- Actors: Robert Beatty, Simone Signoret, Jack Warner, Gordon Jackson, Paul Dupuis
- Directors: Charles Crichton
- Writers: J. Elder Wills, Michael Pertwee, Paul Vincent Carroll, T.E.B. Clarke
- Producers: Michael Balcon, Sidney Cole
- Language English
- Classification: PG
- Studio: Warner
- VHS Release Date: 1 Oct 1999
- Run Time: 96 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- ASIN: B00004CM19
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 10,433 in Video (See Top 100 in Video)
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Product Description
Robert Beatty (Captain Horatio Hornblower; Where Eagles Dare), Simone Signoret (Room at the Top; Ship of Fools; The Deadly Affair; L'Armee des Ombres) & Jack Warner (Holiday Camp; The Blue Lamp; Tv's - Dixon of Dock Green) star in this finely crafted WWII thriller set in occupied Belgium.
British SOE agents try to rescue a fellow agent from German hands, however the mission is further complicated because one of them is actually a traitor working for German Intelligence.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
It's 1943 and a team of saboteurs, some British and some Belgian, are being trained to parachute into Belgium to cause as much damage to the Nazis as they can. After they've landed London learns that one is a traitor. Sound familiar? But this movie is very well done. The heroics are underplayed even though half of the team dies. A special mission they're given is carried out cleverly and realistically.
Among the team members is a young Simone Signoret. In my opinion, over the years she developed into an extraordinarily effective actor. Here, she reflects determination, anguish and a desire not to let herself become emotionally entangled. She discovers the identity of the traitor while they are alone in a farmhouse. He's shaving and she's on the transmitter getting a message from London. The message gives the traitor's name. She picks up her pistol, calls the man's name so he faces her, and without hesitation shoots him. A very tidy, tough scene. She and a young team member played by Gordon Jackson eventually reach a romantic understanding. Because of Signoret's fierceness as an actor it was a little like watching a teen-age cocker spaniel falling in love with a young tigress.
The movie didn't do well when it was released. Some said that it was too close to the war years; nostalgia for courage and victory hadn't set in as it did during the Fifties.
Signoret was, in my opinion, one of the great actors of her time with a career that spanned over 40 years. Check out the span with her performance here -- young, hurt, determined and a great looker, with Room at the Top (1959) -- pushing 40, melancholy, sexy, knowing, with Madame Rosa (1977) -- tender up to a point and looking every day plus more of her age. As she got older, she put on weight and didn't seem to care. I doubt if a surgeon's touch-up scalpel ever tightened her face. And Yves Montand was fascinated enough by her for their marriage to last 34 years until her death.
Among the team members is a young Simone Signoret. In my opinion, over the years she developed into an extraordinarily effective actor. Here, she reflects determination, anguish and a desire not to let herself become emotionally entangled. She discovers the identity of the traitor while they are alone in a farmhouse. He's shaving and she's on the transmitter getting a message from London. The message gives the traitor's name. She picks up her pistol, calls the man's name so he faces her, and without hesitation shoots him. A very tidy, tough scene. She and a young team member played by Gordon Jackson eventually reach a romantic understanding. Because of Signoret's fierceness as an actor it was a little like watching a teen-age cocker spaniel falling in love with a young tigress.
The movie didn't do well when it was released. Some said that it was too close to the war years; nostalgia for courage and victory hadn't set in as it did during the Fifties.
Signoret was, in my opinion, one of the great actors of her time with a career that spanned over 40 years. Check out the span with her performance here -- young, hurt, determined and a great looker, with Room at the Top (1959) -- pushing 40, melancholy, sexy, knowing, with Madame Rosa (1977) -- tender up to a point and looking every day plus more of her age. As she got older, she put on weight and didn't seem to care. I doubt if a surgeon's touch-up scalpel ever tightened her face. And Yves Montand was fascinated enough by her for their marriage to last 34 years until her death.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:VHS Tape
"Against the Wind" was a 1947 British film from director Charles Crichton that was pretty much ignored when it came out because World War II stories were no longer of interest (remember, these are the people who got rid of Winston Churchill soon after victory was declared). The film stars French actress Simone Signoret as the most prominent member of an international group of mostly Belgians brought together to be inserted behind German lines in Belgium where they will engage in acts of sabotage. When one of their number (Peter Illing) is captured by the Nazis, the group heads off across the Channel to get him back. The master sabotage plan is not really clear until too late in the film, as which point we are juggling a whole lot of fairly standard war plots, jumping back and forth between rescuing their comrade, dying noble deaths, disconnecting a railroad train car, discovering the traitor in their midst, and, yes, even finding time to fall in love. But if you can get past the overly familiar plot lines the acting by Simone, Robert Beatty as Father Elliot using the confessional to pass information, John Slater as Emile Meyer who longs to see his wife, and Gordon Jackson as the somewhat shaky explosives expert Johnny Duncan who suffers from an appalling inability to speak French, is pretty good.
The script was based on real stories of those who fought in the Belgian resistance, but some of the authenticity is lost in the jumble of plot lines and some of the film's more melodramatic moments. The film is certainly a change of pace for director Crichton, who is better known for comedies from "The Lavender Hill Mob" to "A Fish Called Wanda." There is something of a documentary feel to the early part of the film where the group engaged in training and as long as Simone Signoret is on screen, our interest is maintained; especially when she coolly dispatches the double agent. "Against the Wind" is a solid little war story, even if it came out to late to offer either inspiration or information to anybody.
21 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
It's 1943 and a team of saboteurs, some British and some Belgian, are being trained to parachute into Belgium to cause as much damage to the Nazis as they can. After they've landed London learns that one is a traitor. Sound familiar? But this movie is very well done. The heroics are underplayed even though half of the team dies. A special mission they're given is carried out cleverly and realistically.
Among the team members is a young Simone Signoret. In my opinion, over the years she developed into an extraordinarily effective actor. Here, she reflects determination, anguish and a desire not to let herself become emotionally entangled. She discovers the identity of the traitor while they are alone in a farmhouse. He's shaving and she's on the transmitter getting a message from London. The message gives the traitor's name. She picks up her pistol, calls the man's name so he faces her, and without hesitation shoots him. A very tidy, tough scene. She and a young team member played by Gordon Jackson eventually reach a romantic understanding. Because of Signoret's fierceness as an actor it was a little like watching a teen-age cocker spaniel falling in love with a young tigress.
The movie didn't do well when it was released. Some said that it was too close to the war years; nostalgia for courage and victory hadn't set in as it did during the Fifties.
Signoret was, in my opinion, one of the great actors of her time with a career that spanned over 40 years. Check out the span with her performance here -- young, hurt, determined and a great looker, with Room at the Top (1959) -- pushing 40, melancholy, sexy, knowing, with Madame Rosa (1977) -- tender up to a point and looking every day plus more of her age. As she got older, she put on weight and didn't seem to care. I doubt if a surgeon's touch-up scalpel ever tightened her face. And Yves Montand was fascinated enough by her for their marriage to last 34 years until her death.
Among the team members is a young Simone Signoret. In my opinion, over the years she developed into an extraordinarily effective actor. Here, she reflects determination, anguish and a desire not to let herself become emotionally entangled. She discovers the identity of the traitor while they are alone in a farmhouse. He's shaving and she's on the transmitter getting a message from London. The message gives the traitor's name. She picks up her pistol, calls the man's name so he faces her, and without hesitation shoots him. A very tidy, tough scene. She and a young team member played by Gordon Jackson eventually reach a romantic understanding. Because of Signoret's fierceness as an actor it was a little like watching a teen-age cocker spaniel falling in love with a young tigress.
The movie didn't do well when it was released. Some said that it was too close to the war years; nostalgia for courage and victory hadn't set in as it did during the Fifties.
Signoret was, in my opinion, one of the great actors of her time with a career that spanned over 40 years. Check out the span with her performance here -- young, hurt, determined and a great looker, with Room at the Top (1959) -- pushing 40, melancholy, sexy, knowing, with Madame Rosa (1977) -- tender up to a point and looking every day plus more of her age. As she got older, she put on weight and didn't seem to care. I doubt if a surgeon's touch-up scalpel ever tightened her face. And Yves Montand was fascinated enough by her for their marriage to last 34 years until her death.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
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