The Night Invader
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| The Night Invader | |
|---|---|
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| Directed by | Herbert Mason |
| Written by | Roland Pertwee Brock Williams |
| Based on | Script error: No such module "Based on". |
| Produced by | Max Milder |
| Starring | Anne Crawford David Farrar Ronald Shiner |
| Cinematography | Otto Heller |
| Music by | Jack Beaver |
Production Template:Pluralize from text | |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. (UK) |
Release dateTemplate:Pluralize from text | Page Template:Plainlist/styles.css has no content.
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Running time | 81 minutes |
| Template:Pluralize from text | United Kingdom |
| Template:Pluralize from text | English |
| Budget | £48,145[2] |
| Box office | £52,583[2] |
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The Night Invader is a lost 1943 British black-and-white war film directed by Herbert Mason and starring Ronald Shiner, Anne Crawford and David Farrar.[3] 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.
Preservation status
The British Film Institute has classed The Night Invader as a lost film.[4] Its National Archive holds a collection of stills but no film or video materials.[3]
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."[5]
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."[6]
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."[7]
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."[8]
References
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- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."The Night Invader". Picturegoer (568): 8–9. 28 November 1942 – via ProQuest.
- ^ a b Steve Chibnall (2019) Hollywood-on-Thames: the British productions ofWarner Bros. – First National, 1931–1945, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 39:4, 687-724, DOI: 10.1080/01439685.2019.1615292 at p 714
- ^ a b Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."The Night Invader". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 11 December 2025.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Eyles, Allen; Meeker, David, eds. (1992). "The Night Invader". Missing Believed Lost: The Great British Film Search. British Film Institute. p. 96. ISBN 0851703062.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."The Night Invader". The Monthly Film Bulletin. 10 (109): 99. 1 January 1943. Template:ProQuest.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."The Night Invader". Kine Weekly. 319 (1): 27. 16 September 1943. Template:ProQuest.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."The Night Invader". Picture Show. 48 (1225): 11. 4 December 1943. Template:ProQuest.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."The Night Invader". Picturegoer. 12: 12. 4 November 1943. Template:ProQuest.
External links
- The Night Invader at the British Film Institute[better source needed]
- The Night Invader at IMDbTemplate:Edit at Wikidata
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