Operation Crossbow

Annotation for KRRR! 2010 by Řehoř K. Pernath

In the second half of the 1960s, no genre in British cinema was more popular than spy films, and so alongside the hugely successful Bond films, parallel agent series were filmed (such as the excellent Ipcress File). However, the spy theme also served as a means of making war films more special, as it introduced tension into the genre due to the lack of information or uncertainty about the identities of the characters, in short, a wide range of possibilities for intelligently complicating the plot. Three years before the famous film Where Eagles Don't Fly, Operation Crossbow was created, turning to an attractive fight with Germany: this time, suspicions about a German production facility for dangerous missiles are at stake. Operation Crossbow does not remain solely on the side of Great Britain, but also maps the positions of the German side. In addition to elaborate spy-action-war entertainment, it also offers space to elaborate on complicated British-German relations (it even uses archival period footage). Director Michael Anderson had extensive experience with brilliant war films with a touch of docudrama reconstruction (The Dam Busters), with magnificent spectacles (Around the World in 80 Days) and with traumatic visions of human society (an adaptation of Orwell's novel 1984). Unlike Anderson's subsequent purely espionage film The Quiller Memorandum (1966), Operation Crossbow straddles genres much more, using the heady 70mm format to stage scenes that are still breathtaking today. In short, we can look forward to tension, action and a great experience from the golden era of British war and espionage films on the big screen.