The Night Invader

The Night Invader
File:The Night Invader film magazine cover (1943-2).jpg From a feature on the film in Picturegoer (28 Nov 1942)
Directed by	Herbert Mason
Written by	Roland Pertwee Brock Williams
Based on	Rendezvous with Death by John Bentley
Produced by	Max Milder
Starring	Anne Crawford David Farrar Ronald Shiner
Cinematography	Otto Heller
Music by	Jack Beaver
Production company	Warner Bros.
Distributed by	Warner Bros. (UK)
Release date	5 December 1943 (1943-12-05) (United Kingdom)
Running time	81 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	£48,145
Box office	£52,583

The Night Invader is a 1943 British black-and-white war film directed by Herbert Mason and starring Ronald Shiner, Anne Crawford and David Farrar. It was written by Roland Pertwee and Brock Williams based on the 1941 novel Rendezvous with Death by John Bentley, and produced by Max Milder for Warner Bros.–First National Productions Ltd. the British subsidiary of Warner Bros.

Plot

Dick Marlow, a British agent, has parachuted into the occupied Netherlands to retrieve vital documents. Whilst on the trail of the papers, he poses occasionally as an American journalist and a Gestapo officer. He meets and falls in love with a Dutch woman who professes solidarity with the British, but matters become complicated and dangerous when it transpires that the woman's brother is in possession of the documents Dick Marlow needs, and is far less kindly disposed towards the British than his sister.

Cast

• Anne Crawford as Karen Lindley
• David Farrar as Dick Marlow
• Sybille Binder as Baroness von Klaveren
• Carl Jaffe as Count von Biebrich
• Marius Goring as Oberleutnant
• Jenny Lovelace as Liesje von Klaveren
• Kynaston Reeves as Sir Michael
• George Carney as conductor
• Ronald Shiner as Witsen
• Martin Walker as Jimmy Archer

Reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "David Farrar rather steals this fast-moving and amusing film from Anne Crawford, while Karl Jaffe is excellent as a bombastic but blundering German colonel even if he slightly burlesques it. The finish is rather incredible, but the swift dialogue almost masks its weakness. A special word should be given to small-part actor George Carney who is superb as a train conductor."

Kine Weekly wrote: "The actual plot is somewhat stereotyped, but the director and principal players cunningly disarm criticism and give it pace and punch by successfully adopting tongue-in-the-cheek methods. Its exuberant sense of humour and its well-timed thrills and hair-raising aerial climax will get it over with the industrial masses and youngsters."

Picture Show wrote: "Somewhat lurid and unconvincing is this spy melodrama ... there's plenty of action and narrow escapes from death before the hero does his stuff and returns triumphant. Briskly directed, heartily acted."

Picturegoer wrote: "Conventional plot concerning the adventures of a young British secret agent whose work takes him to Holland and Paris. It has familiar undercover thrills of a popular order. It smacks of the old-time serial melodrama, but is well put over nonetheless. David Farrar is good in the lead, and Anne Crawford supplies glamour as the heroine."

Availability

No print of The Night Invader is known to survive and the film is classed as "missing, believed lost".

External links

• The Night Invader at the British Film Institute
• The Night Invader at IMDb