Operation Daybreak ** (1975, Timothy Bottoms, Martin Shaw, Anthony Andrews, Anton Diffring, Joss Ackland, Nicola Pagett) – Classic Movie Review 9090

Director Lewis Gilbert’s 1975 wartime historical drama thriller Operation Daybreak is a well-intentioned but longueur-ridden account of the Czech underground’s attempt to assassinate Reichsprotektor SS-General Reinhard ‘Hangman’ Heydrich, Hitler’s right-hand man and head of the Nazi security services, appointed Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia. It starts with the UK deciding to send a group of British-trained Czech commandos to Prague in 1942 to kill ‘The Butcher of Prague’.

Operation Daybreak has a fine cast and crew, and the production is immaculate, but there is not enough action and there are too many talky pauses.

In the film’s best performance, Anton Diffring is outstanding as Heydrich. Timothy Bottoms, Martin Shaw and Anthony Andrews are intense and sincere as the three young Czech sergeants, Jan Kubis, Karel Curda and Jozef Gabcík.

Ronald Harwood’s screenplay is based on Alan Burgess’s novel Seven Men at Daybreak.

Also in the vintage cast are Joss Ackland, Nicola Pagett, Anton Diffring, Carl Duering, Diana Coupland, Cyril Shaps, Ronald Radd, Kim Fortune, Ray Smith, George Sewell, Philip Madoc, Kika Markham, Nigel Stock, Cyril Cross, Vernon Dobtcheff, Aubrey Woods, William Lucas, Reinhard Kolldehoff, Pavla Matéjuvská and Neil McCarthy.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 9090

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