Edge of Darkness starts well, as Germans enter a Nazi stronghold to find everyone dead. The rest of the movie details how this happened, following the exploits of a bunch of Norwegians determined to fight the Nazis.
So far so good, and the movie is helped by some strong performances. But after a while I began to notice how crazy this Norwegians are for giving speeches. Everything is told in long, declamatory sentences about how they will fight and the will win and they are willing to risk death and all that. This may have been very stirring in the midst of WWII and it may be very good as propaganda but it is terrible as film making.
Some moments were particularly absurd. A man goes to the Nazis and makes a long speech about how he has rights and of course he gets predictably beaten up for it. This is extra stupid because he knows perfectly well that the Norwegians has a cache of weapons and are just waiting for a signal from England to start a mass uprising. Even more stupid is when a Polish girl forced into prostitution by the Nazis starts a speech to the soldiers just before the climactic battle. She gets shot, of course, but if she'd just stayed in her room for another 15 minutes she could have been freed.
I watched this movie because I'm a big fan of Lewis Milestone, the director, but this is far from his best work. I'm surprised by all the favorable reviews on this site; perhaps they're all from people who saw the movie when it first came out and have never forgotten the effect it had on them.
So far so good, and the movie is helped by some strong performances. But after a while I began to notice how crazy this Norwegians are for giving speeches. Everything is told in long, declamatory sentences about how they will fight and the will win and they are willing to risk death and all that. This may have been very stirring in the midst of WWII and it may be very good as propaganda but it is terrible as film making.
Some moments were particularly absurd. A man goes to the Nazis and makes a long speech about how he has rights and of course he gets predictably beaten up for it. This is extra stupid because he knows perfectly well that the Norwegians has a cache of weapons and are just waiting for a signal from England to start a mass uprising. Even more stupid is when a Polish girl forced into prostitution by the Nazis starts a speech to the soldiers just before the climactic battle. She gets shot, of course, but if she'd just stayed in her room for another 15 minutes she could have been freed.
I watched this movie because I'm a big fan of Lewis Milestone, the director, but this is far from his best work. I'm surprised by all the favorable reviews on this site; perhaps they're all from people who saw the movie when it first came out and have never forgotten the effect it had on them.