Ray Milland plays a bit younger role than his 51 years as "The Safecracker." This also is his fifth crack at directing a film or TV drama. This is a so-so MGM film about a World War II British intelligence operation to get a list of all the Nazi agents operating in England. But, they have to get behind enemy lines to find it. A commandeered castle in Belgium is the control center for the Nazi agents. And, once the Brits find the list, they need to copy it and return it so that the Nazis don't know the British are now onto all of their agents to haul them in. The Belgian underground has provided the Brits with the castle location, floor plan and all the details they need to sage a quiet Commando operation. There's just one hitch - the military and government don't happen to have an expert safecracker. As a matter of fact, there are only three experts left in all of the land who can crack safes by hearing. The modern thieves, it seems, have less skills and have gone the raw noisy, messier, and more destructive method of safecracking - drilling holes and inserting explosives to blow open safes.
Well, that won't do if the ploy is to get the information without the Germans knowing they got it. A blown safe would be a dead giveaway. Now, before all of this plan can be orchestrated, Ray Milland's Colley Dawson is going about his livelihood of cracking safes to steal expensive jewelry and treasures that wealthy people have acquired over the years. One old guy has the jeweled tiara of a famous queen or princess of somewhere. Another has an ancient gold cup embedded with gem stones. Colley has an eye for expensive heirlooms and such. And, working with an English gentleman, Bennett Carfield, Colley is able to pull off some big thefts that bring them lots of money. Carfield has high society connections, and get the details for where the goods are located.
When Colley buys an expensive car and parks it in a garage away from his home, and starts spending lavishly with a lady friend, he comes under suspicion by the police as being the crafty crook in the spate of recent spotless thefts. Against Carfield's advice, he wants to pull another job right under the nose of Scotland Yard, saying that that would convince them he wasn't the crook since they had been tailing him. But, he underestimates the boys from the Yard and gets caught red-handed after a car chase.
The film opens in 1939 and it is now 1941 and Colley has spent two years of a 10-year prison sentence. Now the government comes calling. He becomes their man for the safecracking job behind enemy lines. But first, he has to undergo training and conditioning with the small Commando team that will parachute into Belgium at night to pull off the mission.
Other parts of the story aren't nearly as far-out as having to have a convict to crack a safe, and the team does its job. But the ending has an interesting twist. It proves once again, that crime doesn't pay. Colley's greed leads him to stop to steal a precious statue, only then to be seen and shot and killed by a German officer. But, with no other signs of a beak-in or raid, or tampering with the safe, the officer assumes he was just a thief trying to steel a valuable piece of art. And, back home, the operation leader and intelligence officer deliver the message to Colley's mother about his death. But, it lifted her spirits to learn that Colley's death had been for a heroic cause to help England defeat Hitler and the Nazis.
There's nothing exceptional about the story, the screenplay, the acting or the technical production. The plot is quite simple, and the technical production seems to be bare bones and cheap. It has just a smidgeon of intensity and mystery over getting caught. It's just not a very captivating story or picture. But for Ray Milland's role, it probably wouldn't have had much of an audience or interest at all.
Well, that won't do if the ploy is to get the information without the Germans knowing they got it. A blown safe would be a dead giveaway. Now, before all of this plan can be orchestrated, Ray Milland's Colley Dawson is going about his livelihood of cracking safes to steal expensive jewelry and treasures that wealthy people have acquired over the years. One old guy has the jeweled tiara of a famous queen or princess of somewhere. Another has an ancient gold cup embedded with gem stones. Colley has an eye for expensive heirlooms and such. And, working with an English gentleman, Bennett Carfield, Colley is able to pull off some big thefts that bring them lots of money. Carfield has high society connections, and get the details for where the goods are located.
When Colley buys an expensive car and parks it in a garage away from his home, and starts spending lavishly with a lady friend, he comes under suspicion by the police as being the crafty crook in the spate of recent spotless thefts. Against Carfield's advice, he wants to pull another job right under the nose of Scotland Yard, saying that that would convince them he wasn't the crook since they had been tailing him. But, he underestimates the boys from the Yard and gets caught red-handed after a car chase.
The film opens in 1939 and it is now 1941 and Colley has spent two years of a 10-year prison sentence. Now the government comes calling. He becomes their man for the safecracking job behind enemy lines. But first, he has to undergo training and conditioning with the small Commando team that will parachute into Belgium at night to pull off the mission.
Other parts of the story aren't nearly as far-out as having to have a convict to crack a safe, and the team does its job. But the ending has an interesting twist. It proves once again, that crime doesn't pay. Colley's greed leads him to stop to steal a precious statue, only then to be seen and shot and killed by a German officer. But, with no other signs of a beak-in or raid, or tampering with the safe, the officer assumes he was just a thief trying to steel a valuable piece of art. And, back home, the operation leader and intelligence officer deliver the message to Colley's mother about his death. But, it lifted her spirits to learn that Colley's death had been for a heroic cause to help England defeat Hitler and the Nazis.
There's nothing exceptional about the story, the screenplay, the acting or the technical production. The plot is quite simple, and the technical production seems to be bare bones and cheap. It has just a smidgeon of intensity and mystery over getting caught. It's just not a very captivating story or picture. But for Ray Milland's role, it probably wouldn't have had much of an audience or interest at all.