drystyx This is a war movie which is about occupied area.The surface plot of three Allied men on a mission in the occupied area to rescue a general is a smokescreen for the real story.The real story comes with the clever writing, writing so clever that even today many people don't notice it, but very evident to those with writing experience.The real story is the people of the occupied area, and what they go through. The chief characters on the surface go through the usual cat and mouse game of espionage.Meanwhile, the civilian characters, notably three of them, a blind man, a beautiful woman, and a toady, show what life is like for them, and what their aspirations are. The entire film is really about them, but it is so cleverly written that it isn't seen by many people.It is well thought out and entertaining as well. It flows much better than about any movie you find today. Thumbs up.

jalilidalili What can I say. I started watching the movie with no expectations at all and were slightly disappointed at some parts, but actually amazed at some other parts.One of the biggest let downs was the post-production. Apart from taking a lot of photage used for either documentaries, news reals or who knows what else, the sound effects were really bad. You'll hear a second long sound of a propeller looping for a very long time, simply because they didn't have any other more realistic sound effect to make it sound like they're on the airport.Too many things happen to easily and that makes the film unrealistic. Don't get me wrong, it's not that the commandos would have an easy job (on the contrary, that part is good), but some other parts... Well, they just happen to stumble on everything at once, so the whole thing can happen within a time-frame of a single day (if not less). Judging by instructions given to one of the rescue party, the entire interrogation and escape and travel tot he meeting point lasted no more then three hours... Those were the downsides. Not to mention the clearly visible painted scenes in the background and people walking around the same rock every time they entered the forest.Still some other parts were really fresh and thrilling.Spoiler ahead!!! I really liked the way how commando captain Bob got out of the interrogation. The German officer offered him a smoke, which he naturally accepted. Upon being put to the lie detector, he answered to all given meeting locations with NO, but before the interrogator would ask for the right place, the captain burned himself with a cigarette, so the lie detector would show the answer given at that time a lie. For me, this was one of the highlights of the film and a very original idea. The lie detector has been done in many movies (although I think this is the oldest one I've seen using a lie detector), but there was always a person lying and trying to pass it off as the truth. This time it was the truth, but it was passed off as a lie, which in my opinion was just brilliant.Another part I really loved was the character of Inge. Her fiancé Erik was one of the people in the rescue party and they met. She betrayed them. There was no remorse, but for the first time I've heard somebody explaining how it was like for the people left behind! She explained they found out she helped Eric escape, she blamed Eric for the death of her father and her own imprisonment. Her character was the one that really turned the tables. This wasn't another "We're heroes, fighting for freedom, without the slightest speck of dirt upon us" movie, but there were also some realistic portraits of real people handling war time situations.Also the fact that Eric cracks under torture quite fast is a commendable scene. Most of the people fighting weren't great heroes, who could stand for inhumane tortures, but were ordinary men with a breaking point - and when that point was reached, they broke.End of spoilers! So the characters, although not developed enough, are still much deeper then in most war movies (even compared to most successful and big hit war movies), unfortunately all the other elements showed it was just a second rate production with very limited budget.It would be interesting to see a remake, after all, how many movies have you seen covering the Allied offensive against Norway (one of the pre-operations that made D-Day possible)?

sol1218 Embarrassingly inept propaganda film that seems to have been hidden away from the public for almost 60 years, since it's release back in 1942, until the miracle of the DVD disc brought it back to be seen by a new, and stunned, generation of movie goers. It's the hight of WWII and the British want to start trouble for the Germans in occupied Norway by getting the Norwegian people to rise up against them. Sending a number of British agents into the country to try to rescue Norwegian General, and national hero, Heden lead to all of them getting captured and shot by the German Army.Desperate the British send a trio of secret agents lead by Capt. Robert Owens together with radio and all around handyman Sgt. Harry Hall and Norwegian patriot Let. Eric Falken to finally get Gen. Hayden out of the country and have him used on the BBC to rally his fellow countrymen to revolt against the hated Germans.Dropped into Norway by plane everything goes wrong for Owen's men almost as soon as they land. Eric's fiancée Inga spots him and, unknowing to Eric, being a German sympathizer reports him and his fellow agents to the local Gestapo. The feared and effective Gestapo act like a bunch of buffoons as their knocked out and disarmed by Eric & Co. after they first disarmed and arrested them. Helped by undercover Norwegian Agent, the towns blind beggar, Spandling, Owens has the three Gestapo officers tied up. The British agents put on the Germans uniforms that are, miraculously, perfect fits for Owens Falken & Hall even though the three are different in hight weight pants and suite size. The Germans trying to untie themselves and not at all feeling threatened by a blind man, Sandling, sitting guard over them have the shock of their lives when Sandling becomes the worlds first suicide bomber! Sandling blows himself the Germans and the entire building up in a massive explosion with a top secret Brtish super hand grenade that Owens gave him. The rest of the movie is all too predictable with the Germans making complete fools of themselves trying to capture the three British agents and screwing up at every opportunity.Owens and his men get to the prison camp where Gen. Haden is being held and have no trouble, being dressed in German Gestapo uniforms, in getting him out but need to get the general help for a broken arm he suffered during his rescue. Hiding in the cold Norwegian woods Owens sends Eric, who can speak Norwegian, into town to get help but he's again betrayed by Inga to the Gestapo. We later learn why Inga is so mad at her former lover Eric. Eric checked on her fathers sturdy and sea-bearing sailboat and held Eric responsible for her fathers death when he drowned in the dinky and water-logged dinghy that Eric left him when he tried to do the same thing, escape to freedom in England. The Germans again capture Owens, as Sgt. Hall gets away with Gen. Heden, and unlike with poor Eric whom they tortured almost to death the Germans try kindness with him by offering him a smoke. All this in order to get Eric to open up and tell them not only where Gen Heden is but what else is being planned by his superiors back in London in regards to the planned allied invasion of Norway.The ending of the movie makes you think that your watching a war movie about the D-Day invasion of France, with an armada of ships planes and thousands of allied troops storming the beaches, instead of a film about three commandos trying to get just one man out of Norway under the cover of darkness."They Raid by Night" is worth watching only because it has actor Lyle Talbot as it's top star playing the head of the British rescue team Capt. Robert Owens. Fame would smile on Talbot ten years later when he met and became involved with legendary "Bad Movie" director Edward Wood Jr. and was cast in four of his cinematic classics; "The Adventures of the Tucson Kid" and "Glen and Glenda" in 1953 "Jail Bait" in 1954 and what many consider to be Wood's greatest masterpiece his "Citizen Kane" the superb immortal and unforgettable "Plan Nine from Outer Space".

truerock74 Yes, the production values are lacking. Yes, there are abundant plot holes -- however, for a Poverty Row war movie from the 1940s, the movie is actually not half bad. While there are numerous shots of stock footage and people walking in to poorly painted curtains doubling for the winter-bound grandeur that is Norway, the acting is better than one would expect in a movie of the genre. The writing seems to be a half-tick better than the average fare of the time and genre. The fellow playing the Nazi commander isn't the normal "one note" evil Nazi so often seen both then and later in such movies. The fellow playing the chief commando on the raid is fairly effective, if not entirely believable in the part.All in all, I recommend it for those who are World War II buffs and have 70 minutes to kill.