Operation: Daybreak (1975)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Lewis Gilbert

Writers:

Alan Burgess (novel)
Ronald Harwood (writer)

Release Date:

5 March 1976 (Sweden)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama | War

Tagline:

A hit-and-run operation with no place to run.

Plot:

In 1942 Czechoslovakia, SS-General Reinhard Heydrich is appointed to become the Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia...

Plot Keywords:

WWII | SS | Czechoslovakian History | Sergeant | Based On True Story

Cast

Timothy Bottoms	...	Sgt. Jan Kubis
Martin Shaw	...	Sgt. Karel Curda
Joss Ackland	...	Janák
Nicola Pagett	...	Anna
Anthony Andrews	...	Sgt. Jozef Gabcík
Anton Diffring	...	Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich
Carl Duering	...	Karl Frank, Gestapo Chief
Cyril Shaps	...	Father Petrek
Diana Coupland	...	Aunt Marie Moravcová
Ronald Radd	...	Karel Moravec
Kim Fortune	...	Ata Moravec
Pavla Matéjuvská	...	Jindri^Úka Moravcová
Ray Smith	...	Hájek
George Sewell	...	Heinz Panwitz, Chief Investigator
Reinhard Kolldehoff	...	Fleischer, Gestapo

Also Known As:

Seven Met at Daybreak
The Price of Freedom (USA) (reissue title)

Runtime:

118 min

Country:

USA | Czechoslovakia | Yugoslavia

Language:

English | German

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Netherlands:16 | Norway:16 (video release) | Finland:K-16 | Norway:18 (1976) | Sweden:15 | USA:PG

Filming Locations:

Prague, Czech Republic

Company:

American Allied Pictures

Trivia:

This movie was one of the few productions (besides several made in Russia and Yugoslavia) who took the time and the effort of duplicating WW2 German Tiger tanks. The only other American production who did this was Kelly's Heroes (1970), until Steven Spielberg did the same for his movie Saving Private Ryan (1998).

Goofs:

Anachronisms: Both Heydrich and Hitler wear pre-war Nazi Party and SS uniforms throughout most of the film - Heydrich in a black SS uniform with swastika armband and Hitler in a brown Nazi Party jacket. By 1942, when Heydrich was killed, all SS personnel wore field grey uniforms and Hitler had by this time adopted a grey soldier's coat which had replaced his older style brown jacket.

Quotes:

[The last time they meet]
Anna: I never did get that red dress.
Jan Kubis: And I never saw that football match.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in In the Shadow of Memory (1999)

Flawed but deeply moving...

I've seen this several times now and I can never watch the end of this movie. My husband and I watched it again last night and I simply broke down and cried for ten minutes. Such waste of young lives... To read the later fates of the characters in the credits was particularly wrenching. Very good performances, foremost of which must be Anton Difring. Beautiful use was made of Prague's older quarters. Unlike many I didn't like the music at all; I felt the subject deserved better. One wonders what the widow and daughter of Heinrich thought of the destruction of Lidice and its subsequent reincarnation in the aftermath of the war.