Northern Pursuit

Plot synopsis:
After a German U-boat drops off Nazi saboteurs, RCMP Corporal Wagner (Flynn) captures the leader, Colonel Hugo von Keller (Helmut Dantine), the only survivor after an avalanche wipes out the rest of the group. When left alone with the Canadian Mountie, von Keller discovers that Wagner speaks German and is of German ancestry, and tries to persuade his captor to help him. After being taken into custody, von Keller leads a jailbreak from a prisoner of war camp, enlisting other German soldiers in his escape. Wagner, seemingly under suspicion by the RCMP of being a Nazi sympathizer, asks to be discharged from the force and is contacted by Ernst Willis (Gene Lockhart), a real enemy agent, who hires him as a wilderness guide.
Wagner and his new confederate set out for the north by train, while a pursuing Mountie who makes contact with Wagner is killed by the agent. Wagner is taken to von Keller and convinces him that he is loyal to Germany and can guide him and his companions through the Canadian wilderness to a mysterious destination. His fiancee Laura McBain (Julie Bishop) is held as a hostage to ensure his loyalty but Wagner, acting as a double agent, manages to send a message to headquarters to alert them of the Nazi saboteurs' plans.
Fellow Mountie Jim Austin (John Ridgely) follows their trail, but is spotted and killed, along with Willis and an Indian porter, before the group reaches a mine shaft where bomber components have been secreted before the war. The bomber is assembled and takes off for its mission: to bomb the main arterial waterway between the United States and Canada to disrupt transatlantic shipping of war materials. Wagner manages to escape, climb aboard the aircraft to shoot the crew, and parachute to safety before the bomber crashes. After recovering from a wound he received during the skirmish on board the aircraft, he and Laura marry.

Tags: intrigue, murder

Review:
This Mounties versus Nazis picture bears little resemblance, as claimed, to The 49th Parallel and even less to Across The Pacific.From the opening scene with a German submarine breaking through the ice in Hudson Bay to the climatic showdown in a bomber aloft, Northern Pursuit is high-powered excitement all the way.
Top action director Raoul Walsh directs top action star Errol Flynn with a script by popular western writer Frank Gruber and high class novelist William Faulkner.
Solid support is provided by Helmut Dantine, reprising his ruthless Nazi officer from Edge Of Darkness (see my review), perky Julie Bishop, Tom Tully, John Ridgely, and Gene Lockhart in another of what was becoming his stock sneaky, Nazi sympathizer role.
The story of German descent Mountie Flynn penetrating a Nazi-sympathizing Canadian spy organization co-operating with escaped German prisoners of war maintains suspense and interest throughout.
He had had to flee his home country because because of his anti-Nazi activities.While not a classic of the genre like Edge Of Darkness, Nothern Pursuit is a top "A" production war/intrigue thriller, effective WWII propaganda yet enjoyable, exciting, smooth entertainment from Warner Brothers' and Old Hollywood's Golden years..
(This is addressed in some brutal killings partway through.) The key plot idea is that a group of expert Nazis might actually sneak into remote areas of the country to perform acts of sabotage.The movie audience here is mostly in the United States, to be sure (Canada's population is so small it is always a secondary concern from the studio's point of view).
The idea of a Royal Mountie, in this case, the dashing Errol Flynn, going after the bad guys have all the elements for a good adventure.The screen play is ultimately the downfall of the film, although there are hints of greatness, especially on the last part of the film which involves a daring attempt from the head Nazi infiltrator to fly an aircraft with a bomb on board.
Julie Bishop is Errol Flynn's love interest, although there's no obvious chemistry between them.Raoul Walsh's fans will probably enjoy this film a lot more than the casual viewer..
But neither is it the bad movie some of the previous reviewers suggest.I found it very suspenseful.If you try viewing it as the original, intended audience did back in 1943, when the U.S. was not winning the war in Europe and there were fears of German infiltration everywhere, you can imagine how relevant this story would have been to audiences.Tension is maintained for much of the movie by keeping us in suspense regarding Flynn's character's allegiances.
Although not quite as gripping as "Desperate Journey", or as marvelously sprawling as "49th Parallel", this slick film is everything you could ask for in a WWII actioner--even more, with Errol Flynn teaming up with Raoul Walsh.
The acting is good, and the direction is taut and entertaining, with writers Bessie and Gruber providing a suspenseful story line concerning a nazi spy(Dantine) captured in Canada by a Royal Mountie(Flynn), the spy's escape from prison camp, and Flynn's efforts to thwart Dantine's nefarious mission in the great white north(and a dastardly mission it is, too--those dirty Nazis!).Adolph Deutsch scores a cleverly subtle soundtrack to raise the suspense quotient, as he did for "High Sierra" and "The Maltese Falcon".
This is a real bow-wow.Errol Flynn stars in "Northern Pursuit," a 1943 propaganda film directed by Raoul Walsh.
It also stars Helmut Dantine, Gene Lockhart, and Julie Bishop.Walsh told a story of how Jack Warner used to call him up to his office and tell him he had to direct a script for him.
This scenario might have been the case for "Northern Pursuit." Flynn and Walsh were very close friends, but they both might have been blind-sided into this one by dear old Jack.The premise story concerns Nazis in Canada who are trying to get way into the Canadian wilderness, where parts of a bomber have been hidden.
Flynn is a mountie whose character is of German descent, so he goes undercover and, knowing the area, helps the Nazis on their journey.Even if you ignore this plot, and you have to in order to get through the movie, it's pretty slow going.
Helmut Dantine and Gene Lockhart give excellent performances, though, and handsome, charismatic Flynn does as well as he can given the circumstances.A youngster on this board trashed this movie, the 1940s audiences, and propaganda films in general, making mention of the "special effects." Given that this was filmed on a Warner sound stage without benefit of CGI and a computer, the film looks pretty good, with some very effective effects.
In Northern Pursuit, the brothers Warner tried to adapt the earlier Humphrey Bogart film, Across the Pacific to a story about our neighbors to the north.
I'm sure Errol Flynn's name above the title sold a few tickets back in the day, but as for drama Northern Pursuit is one of the more laughable examples of wartime propaganda zeal.Like in 49th Parallel a group of Nazis get over to Canada, but they're going to the great frozen north instead of away from it.
Later on when Dantine escapes to try and complete his original mission, Flynn joins him and this is where the plot of the film looks just like Across the Pacific.
Errol was fresh from his acquittal in that rape trial so I'm sure he had other things on his mind.Seen today, Northern Pursuit is unintentionally funny in many spots, it's one of the low points of Flynn's career at Warner Brothers..
WWII movies are very entertaining because WWII can be viewed as more if a "just war", if anything can be imagined...and a lot of heart and passion went into many of the films, which were manned by the best directors and crews, and populated by some of the greatest of actors.
Nevertheless, the weak script and cardboard characters contribute toward reducing it to a standard and slick wartime adventure.Flynn is a Mountie of German descent, pretending Nazi sympathies in order to spy against Nazis operating in Canada.
WWII propaganda films were painful viewing for anyone of even modest intelligence because their intent was to demonize the enemy and frighten the viewer, who ideally would rush out of the theater and begin manically buying war bonds.Second it is a screenplay by Frank Gruber who wrote very bad western novels and detective fiction before inflicting himself on motion pictures and television.
If your plausibility meter has just jumped off the scale remember that this was intended for an audience raised on "The Adventures of Tom Swift".Errol Flynn plays a RCMP agent who infiltrates the Nazi network and is later forced to help with their scheme because they are holding his girlfriend (played by Julie Bishop) as a hostage.
Helmut Dantine plays a fanatical Luftwaffe pilot and Gene Lockhart (June Lockhart's father) plays an undercover Nazi agent.Unfortunately Gruber's goal was to induce hysteria rather than to script characters with logical motivations.
Flynn can be excused for sleepwalking through this thing, as it would be difficult for anyone saddled with a script this bad to summon up much energy.If you don't get some laughs from the premise or the dialogue you might still get some entertainment from the scene of the Indian Guide (played by Joe Herrera) trying to escape.
He looks in great shape despite the fact that he had a dicky ticker, a bad back, tuberculosis, a couple of exotic diseases picked up along the way and a liver that was in more danger of destruction than any target of the Nazis in the film.Set in Canada during WW2, Errol plays Steve Wagner, a Royal Canadian Mountie of German Ancestry whose loyalty is questioned when he comes across Nazi secret agents who are planning to bomb a canal that is critical to the Allied war effort.Although the story feels cobbled together, the film looks good.
Although Errol was rarely upstaged, Helmut Dantine was Warner's go-to Nazi guy during the war years.
He was no off-the-rack, monocled Nazi stereotype, he came across as vigorous, smart and fanatical; a formidable enemy, he was also good looking and often got the best lines.If you like the stars, and Flynn was absolutely unique, then there is much to enjoy here.
The cover also touts the performances of Helmut Dantine as "excellent as the formidable Nazi leader", and Julie Bishop adding "high drama to the film" as Flynn's love interest, but neither make much of an impression in their roles.
It's a Stiff Looking Film that despite its Wide Open Wilderness Setting, comes off as a Claustrophobic, Constrained Clunker that was Forgotten Immediately and remains in the Periphery when Propaganda, War, or Errol Flynn Movies are Considered..
In making this film it's obvious the studio had in mind to have lighting strike twice, with the combination of Flynn/Walsh and Nazis.
Errol Flynn,(Corporal Steve Wagner) was a Royal Canadian Mountie who found a man who was exhausted and found in deep snow.
This man was Colonel Hugo Von Keller,(Helmut Dantine) who is a Nazi officer and also a pilot who was on a secret mission in Canada.
Quite entertaining but Dantine's evil Nazi is a much better, more believable and realistic character than Flynn's debonair, smooth wilderness expert Mountie.
Directed by the great Raoul Walsh, here we have Errol playing a Canadian Mountie of German descent who tries to infiltrate a group of Nazi saboteurs led by Helmut Dantine.
About the only time you really see that Flynn charm is in the film's final line, which is probably the most memorable part of this besides the curiosity of the "Mounties vs Nazis" plot.
As I said, not the best of Flynn's WW2 movies but anything starring Errol and directed by Raoul Walsh is going to be worth a look.
the Nazis, Round 3' Battleground: CanadaBeing myself a Canadian, I was thrilled to find in my 'TCM Spotlight: Errol Flynn Adventures' (five films made during WWII in which Errol Flynn battles the Nazis) a film helmed by one of my favourite American directors of the period, in Raoul Walsh, with Flynn starring as a RCMP officer (typically called 'Mountie') making sure the Nazis can't succeed in their quest to sneak into Canada and, there, create another front in their quest to bring hell on Earth.
As a child, I loved his rendition of one of my very favourite heroes (Robin Hood), and lately I quite enjoyed seeing the ill-starred (dying at 50--again in Canada--from a heart attack brought on by chronic alcoholism) native Australian who was perhaps the second-most alluring male thespian of all-time, behind the equally ill-fated Rudolph Valentino, in an audacious TCM 4-pack of outstanding adventure movies, such as 'Captain Blood' and 'The Sea Hawk', and an equally intriguing 4-pack of Westerns he made as his star began to wane.This doesn't disappoint, as Walsh directs, just like he always does, with an appealing eye and a talent for setting up suspense and excitement.
Northern PursuitThe reason Canadians didn't fight the Japanese during WWII was because they had them all locked in internment camps.And while Japanese-Canadians were never a threat, the axis members in this action movie were.RCMP Corporal Wagner (Errol Flynn) and his partner (John Ridgely) capture a Nazis Colonel (Helmut Dantine).On discovering Cpl. Wagner is of German ancestry, Herr Colonel asks him to join him.
Later, when the Colonel escapes, Cpl. Wagner does.Together, with Native guides, they recover a German bomber that had been stashed in northern Manitoba before the war.Now, the only person who can stop Jerry from air-bombarding Canadian waterways is the two-timing Mountie, who's been working undercover.Using Idaho's snowcapped mountains to represent the prairie terrain of the Keystone Province, Northern Pursuit is a geographical joke.
The eyes of Helmut Dantine and Errol Flynn tell the entire story in this 1943 thriller.
Gene Lockhart gives a fine supporting performance as a Canadian spy, a true patriot to the Third Reich, who learns what happens when you have completed your assignment and can now pose a hindrance.Flynn gives a strong performance here as a scorned Canadian working in counter-intelligence for them.This is certainly A World War 11 interesting film..
Of the Northwest Mounted Police, it is the German descended Errol Flynn who becomes the pawn in his plan to get more of his men (all being transported to a prisoner of war detention center) and get to the secret base.
Flynn pretends to be a traitor, and as for the rest, well, more of the same from other war propaganda films.Except, this more of the same is an exciting snowbound trek across the Yukon territory, as far up north as humanly possible to travel.
There are a few plot clichés which include Flynn's fiancée Julie Bishop conveniently used by the Nazis to keep Flynn in line, and poor Gene Lockhart, typecast once again as a fool, a supposed American businessman who is a traitor both sinister and cowardly, getting no sympathy.As for Dantine, there are a few moments where his character shows tinges of humanity, but when you've got Hitler in your brain, those moments are brief.
It is a great loss.Flynn is more or less kidnapped by German pilot Helmut Dantine and his three Nazi companions and forced to lead them across the wilderness of northern Manitoba, where a bomber is stashed.
Errol Flynn Foils the Nazis Up North.
This is a very watchable and somewhat typical WWII anti-Nazi Hollywood propaganda film.
Errol Flynn plays his character well and convincing and proofs that he can still play a great leading man, even when the movie itself is a lacking one.The movie would had been a so much better one if it had had some more action and tense moments in it.
It's pretty obvious that this movie was of course a piece of anti-Nazi propaganda, released in 1943.Still watchable, as long as you don't expect too much fireworks from it or of Flynn.6/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/.
Perhaps the reason they filmed such a bad plot is because it was WWII and they wanted a good propaganda piece for the audiences--but still, it should have been a lot better.
Even though Errol Flynn had little to do in most of the movie, as usual his performance appears effortless as he was a very good actor.
Raoul Walsh directed four of Errol Flynn's World War II movies at Warner Brothers.
Errol Flynn portrays an undercover RCMP Corporal in pursuit of a Nazi pilot ultimately intent on bombing the St. Lawrence Seaway.This movie is set in "the frozen north" of Canada.
This film is so heavy on propaganda it permeates you pretty quickly.The plot outline is a group of Nazi soldiers are infiltrating the Northern Canadian wilderness to make their way to a secret abandoned mine where they have secretly throughout the years been hoarding airplane and bomb parts.
Errol Flynn was also in this one but the story and characters are far more believable.Not a bad film, just not a very good one..
This was part of a running gag, as Laura's notoriously frugal Scottish father (Alec Craig) had just done this line, after agreeing to pay for the expensive wedding reception.How very ironic that Helmut Dantine: former leader of the anti-Nazi activists of Hitler's former hometown: Vienna, should be fated to play evil Nazi leaders in several war propaganda -slanted Hollywood films released during WWII.Presumably, the take home message for contemporary audiences was that North Americans had better be wary of Axis spies and sabotage attempts, even in the heartland, which was directly reachable by Nazi U boats, via Hudson's Bay. Also, Americans and Canadians of rather recent German immigrants should be kept under surveillance as potential spies and saboteurs.
The far-fetched details of the screen-play also don't help a possible recommendation of this film.The screenplay begins with a Nazi submarine surfacing near an ice-choked western shore of Hudson's Bay, offloading a number of airmen, who somehow walk across the treacherous floating chunks of ice, to the shore, with skis, for a 5 day trip over snow to an abandoned mine shaft in northern Saskatchewan, where pieces of a bomber have been stored in crates since before WWII began.(Never mind that Hitler never expected to have to fight the British Commonwealth and France, in his goal to conquer the USSR!).
recycled the essence of Across the Pacific (1942), this time using Errol Flynn (in lieu of Humphrey Bogart) as a disgraced Mountie that infiltrates a German operation – led by Helmut Dantine (of course) – on Canadian soil.Directed by Raoul Walsh and scripted by Frank Gruber and Alvah Bessie from the story by Leslie T.
White, Flynn plays Steve Wagner who, along with fellow officer Jim Austin (John Ridgely), initially captures Nazi Colonel Hugo von Keller (Dantine), who'd survived an avalanche that destroyed his original invasion team.
***SPOILERS*** The usual WWII Hollywood propaganda flick involving Canadian Mountie Cpl. Steve Wagner played by Australian/American Errol Flynn-All three countries fighting for the allied side-doing his bit for the cause by betraying his country and joining the Nazis so he can find out what their up to and then turning the tables on them.
It's when Nazi airman Col. Hugo Von Keller,Helmut Dantine, is found almost frozen to death in the Canadian wild that Wagner-a Canadian of German decent-wins him over by playing traitor to his country Canada and offering to help Hugo in sabotaging the allied war effort.With his partner in the Mounties Jim Austin, John Ridgely, in on the shame he trails Hugo and his fellow Nazis, who just escaped from a Stalg 17 like POW camp camp,,to where their going in the northern Canadian wood along with Wagner's girlfriend Laura McMcBain played by Julie Bishop- You can't make a movie with Errol Flynn not having a love interest in it-who somehow got hooked up with the group tagging along.
In NORTHERN PURSUIT, Errol Flynn plays a Keystone Mountie bumbler who keeps getting the other Mounties killed (including the Best Man for his upcoming wedding).