Robert Donat is one of my favorite actors of the 1930s to 1950s. Despite a relatively small film output (roughly 25 movies I believe) Donat showed a wide variety of different parts, including comedy, historical, character studies, spy films (including THE 39 STEPS for Hitchcock), and straight drama. He never gave a bad performance even if the film left some problems. And all was accomplished despite being a serious asthmatic. To top it off, he pulled off the all time miracle "Oscar" for best actor. He beat Clarke Gable in 1939, when Gable's "Rhett Butler" was the odds favorite for best role. Donat trumped it with the schoolmaster, "Mr. Chipping", in GOODBYE MR. CHIPS. Fans of GONE WITH THE WIND may have cause to grumble (forgetting Gable already won the Oscar as "Peter Warne" in IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT) but fans of Donat (and they included Walter Matthau, who said he was his favorite actor) have never complained.
SABOTAGE AGENT is known in the U.S. as THE ADVENTURES OF TARTU. The title change is understandable. There are so many films with "sabotage" in the title (Hitchcock had "SABOTAGE" in 1936 and "SABOTEUR" in 1943). But the name is misleading accidentally. "Jan Tartu" is the false identity name given to Donat's character Captain Terence Stevenson when he is sent on a mission into Czechoslovakia during World War II. The ADVENTURES OF STEVENSON would have been less misleading on this point, but people might have thought that it referred to the author of TREASURE ISLAND.
Stevenson, a linguist, has been on home watch duty, but is selected for the mission due to his grasp on central European languages, specifically, Czech, Roumanian, and German (a neat trick, by the way, as these are from three separate language groups: Slavic, Latin, and Germanic - Stevenson must have been like my father, a real super expert on foreign tongues). The real Tartu (who has conveniently been killed) was a member of Roumania's native Fascist group, "The Iron Guard". The Roumanians joined the Axis in 1941, having seen what happened to the most pro-Western Balkan state (Yugoslavia) which was invaded and bombed (as was Greece). Roumania and Bulgaria (the latter reluctantly) joined the Nazis (Roumania did it willingly in expectation of expanding its borders, Bulgaria to protect itself from the Russians under Stalin). It's instructive to follow what happened in both countries. From the King on down in Bulgaria there was a general refusal to cooperate in sending Jews to their deaths in German camps, so that 90% of Bulgaria's Jews (the largest number of ANY country in Europe) survived World War II. Roumania handed the bulk of them over.
Donat goes to Prague as Tartu, and plays him as a flamboyant nitwit. The Nazis have little real use for him in Prague (he is there on some trivial diplomatic excuse) and find him more of a nuisance than anything else. Donat decides to allow the Nazis to find just useless he is - in one sequence he manages to insist on "helping" them capture an anti-Nazi partisan. Of course the partisan escapes while the Nazis are forced to see "Tartu" pounding on a wall as though he is doing something remarkably clever.
The mission is to find the secret factory where a deadly new gas is being manufactured (this is a running theme in many films of the 1930s and 1940s - a secret poison gas that some country is manufacturing to use on the battlefield: memories of the battles of World War I prevented people from considering poison gas used on civilian prisoners for "ethnic cleansing" purposes). With the assistance of Glynis Johns and Valerie Hobson Donat does find the factory, cleverly hidden within a mountain. Now the problem is to destroy it, which leads to an exciting conclusion within the factory within the mountain.
Unusual for most Donat films (only KNIGHT WITHOUT ARMOUR has as much daring-do involving Donat and co-star Marlene Dietrich fleeing the Bolsheviks in 1919) THE ADVENTURES OF TARTU is a good escapist film. Although the references in it put it firmly in 1943 when it was made it is still an entertaining film for today. The performances are good, with Johns quite moving as she sacrifices herself for Donat's mission, and Hobson being forced to descend to murder to help as well. I recommend it for those performances, as well as Donat's over-the-top one as the eccentric "Iron Guardist".
SABOTAGE AGENT is known in the U.S. as THE ADVENTURES OF TARTU. The title change is understandable. There are so many films with "sabotage" in the title (Hitchcock had "SABOTAGE" in 1936 and "SABOTEUR" in 1943). But the name is misleading accidentally. "Jan Tartu" is the false identity name given to Donat's character Captain Terence Stevenson when he is sent on a mission into Czechoslovakia during World War II. The ADVENTURES OF STEVENSON would have been less misleading on this point, but people might have thought that it referred to the author of TREASURE ISLAND.
Stevenson, a linguist, has been on home watch duty, but is selected for the mission due to his grasp on central European languages, specifically, Czech, Roumanian, and German (a neat trick, by the way, as these are from three separate language groups: Slavic, Latin, and Germanic - Stevenson must have been like my father, a real super expert on foreign tongues). The real Tartu (who has conveniently been killed) was a member of Roumania's native Fascist group, "The Iron Guard". The Roumanians joined the Axis in 1941, having seen what happened to the most pro-Western Balkan state (Yugoslavia) which was invaded and bombed (as was Greece). Roumania and Bulgaria (the latter reluctantly) joined the Nazis (Roumania did it willingly in expectation of expanding its borders, Bulgaria to protect itself from the Russians under Stalin). It's instructive to follow what happened in both countries. From the King on down in Bulgaria there was a general refusal to cooperate in sending Jews to their deaths in German camps, so that 90% of Bulgaria's Jews (the largest number of ANY country in Europe) survived World War II. Roumania handed the bulk of them over.
Donat goes to Prague as Tartu, and plays him as a flamboyant nitwit. The Nazis have little real use for him in Prague (he is there on some trivial diplomatic excuse) and find him more of a nuisance than anything else. Donat decides to allow the Nazis to find just useless he is - in one sequence he manages to insist on "helping" them capture an anti-Nazi partisan. Of course the partisan escapes while the Nazis are forced to see "Tartu" pounding on a wall as though he is doing something remarkably clever.
The mission is to find the secret factory where a deadly new gas is being manufactured (this is a running theme in many films of the 1930s and 1940s - a secret poison gas that some country is manufacturing to use on the battlefield: memories of the battles of World War I prevented people from considering poison gas used on civilian prisoners for "ethnic cleansing" purposes). With the assistance of Glynis Johns and Valerie Hobson Donat does find the factory, cleverly hidden within a mountain. Now the problem is to destroy it, which leads to an exciting conclusion within the factory within the mountain.
Unusual for most Donat films (only KNIGHT WITHOUT ARMOUR has as much daring-do involving Donat and co-star Marlene Dietrich fleeing the Bolsheviks in 1919) THE ADVENTURES OF TARTU is a good escapist film. Although the references in it put it firmly in 1943 when it was made it is still an entertaining film for today. The performances are good, with Johns quite moving as she sacrifices herself for Donat's mission, and Hobson being forced to descend to murder to help as well. I recommend it for those performances, as well as Donat's over-the-top one as the eccentric "Iron Guardist".