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London Calling North Pole

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Original title

Londra chiama Polo Nord

Year

1958

Running time

100 min.

Country

Italy

Director

Duilio Coletti

Screenwriter

Duilio Coletti, Ennio De Concini, Giuseppe Scoponi, Massimo Mida. Novel: H.J. Giskes

Cast

Music

Nino Rota

Cinematography

Gábor Pogány

Producer

Excelsa Films

Genre

Drama. War | Spy Film. Nazism. II World War

Synopsis

Fairly close based on the Englandspiel-episode during the Second World War. An Abwehr or Counterspy unit of the German Army (unit III-F) manages to capture an English radio-operator dropped in the occupied Netherlands. In stead of torturing or executing him, like the Gestapo surely would have done, Colonel Bernes (Curd Jürgens) treats the prisoner with respect and according to international laws.
After a while he persuades the prisoner to send a new radio message to London. As taught during his training, the British agent deliberately makes no mistakes in his message. This should have set off alarm bells across the Chanel, as he normally was supposed to make well defined mistakes at specific places in his message. Such an extra security measure is called a "security check".
To his amazement though, London goes on sending agents , weapons, munitions and all kind of goods to the Netherlands. In the meantime, a German radio operator has closely studied the way the "signature" of the British radio-operator, and is soon able to imitate his way of communicating perfectly. When a captured British agent manages to escape and to get back to England, Bernes's operation is in danger. But the German fox has other tricks on his sleeve… In real life, this Operation Nordpol was led by Major Hermann Giskes (1896-1977). His team managed to arrest 59 agents between 1941 and 1943, from which 54 were executed in September 1944.

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User history

London Calling North Pole

1958

Duilio Coletti