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List Price: $19.98Price: $16.40 You Save: $3.58 (18%)Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786302078022
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
ISBN: 6302078024
Label: 20th Century Fox
Languages: EnglishOriginal LanguageAnalogGermanOriginal LanguageAnalogLatinOriginal LanguageAnalogSpanishOriginal LanguageAnalog
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: 20th Century Fox
Release Date: January 01, 1998
Running Time: 103 minutes
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Theatrical Release Date: 1955
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com:
A real beauty of a true story provides the basis for The Man Who Never Was, a gripping World War II picture that has no combat scenes, no great vistas of troops. The time is 1943, as the Allies prepare the invasion of Sicily and desperately need a diversionary ploy to make the Germans suspect another invasion target. The solution is simple but ingenious: a dead man's body will be left in the sea to float ashore on the coast of Spain; made to look like a British pilot, he will be carrying papers suggesting an Allied attack on Greece. When the papers fall to the Nazis, they'll swallow the bogus story…or will they? The film's final third tracks an Irish spy for the Axis (Steven Boyd, in one of his first roles) as he travels to London to investigate loose ends.
Clifton Webb gives a crisp, disciplined performance as Ewen Montagu, the officer in charge of the scheme. The film errs only in some melodrama involving Gloria Grahame, the histrionic roommate of an Intelligence worker. Other than that, director Ronald Neame brings his steady, classy approach to bear on a good yarn, and saves special grace for the treatment of the unfortunate dead man who unwittingly loaned his body to a stunt that saved hundreds, if not thousands, of lives. The film's final haunting shots capture the ethereal shiver of its title. --Robert Horton
Description:
Clifton Webb stars in this fascinating account of a daring intelligence operation designed to mislead the Nazis prior to the 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily. In an effort to convince the Germans to redeploy their defenses, Lt. Commander Montagu (Webb) creates a false English officer and fabricates letters that indicate the British intend to land in Greece. Montagu than plants these documents on a dead man and orchestrates the "discovery" of this "officer" on the coast of Spain, Knowing the papers will fall into German hands. What follows is a taut cat-and mouse game as British Intelligence waits for Berlin to respond, then races to stay one step ahead of the Nazi agent dispatched to determine if the dead man is genuine. This true story of ingenious deception is a riveting tale of wartime espionage.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
In 1942 Allied powers greatly desired to invade Sicily--a fact of which Axis powers were well aware and against which the island was greatly fortified. In an effort to trick the Nazi military, British intelligence agents Flight Lt. Charles Cholmondeley and Lt. Commander Ewen Montagu came up with a clever plan: a body, bearing papers indicating that the major Allied attack would come elsewhere, was floated in to Spanish waters. Although technically neutral, Spain was sympathetic to the Nazis, and with any luck the papers would be thought genuine and reach German hands.
Although top secret even after the war, a good story is hard to keep down, and after numerous leaks Montagu himself was allowed to write an account of the deception. Titled THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS, the book was an overnight bestseller and the 1956 film version proved very popular as well. In retelling the story on the screen, writer Nigel Balchin took a number of liberties with the story, most particularly in ... Read More
Rating:  -
This is one of the most meticulously well told espionage stories ever!
Clifton Webb gives a stunning performance as the cold Lt. Commander Mantagu, whose mission is to create a diversion tactic to lure the Germans away from the real Italian location the British plan to invade. So he thinks of the most daring, sophisticated and simple plan of them all: to have a dead British officer carrying top secret information falling on the hands of the Germans. But the plan is not easy and every detail must be calculated with care as the Germans will know the information is too good, therefore, they will investigate the dead man's life in order to spot any fabrication.
Most of the film revolves around the making of the "the man" - getting the right body, producing the documents, finding him a personal life, preserving him from decomposing... and launching him from a submarine into a beach in Spain where the sharpest German operator is certain to find him.
Then it ... Read More
Rating: -
This is such a great movie, and if I had never seen it, I would not have known of this ingenious ploy created to out-fox the Germans in WWII. It involves planting false information on a body that is then allowed to wash up upon a critical shore. The Germans recover the body, analyze the false information and papers on the body, consider them geunine, and make battle plans accordingly, thinking they have a real "find." Instead they fall into a well-planned trap. Clifton Webb is excellent in his part, as is the "body."
Rating: -
I love all of Clifton Webb films, this one really extracts his serious side of acting. great film of the era, he is truly the one of the best actors of his time.
Rating: -
A world war 2 story with a very unusual twist. It held my interest throughout the movie. The acting was so good, I beleived all the events to be true. I would recommend it to all. Movie buff-Ann
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