Orders to Kill

Plot synopsis:
A young American bomber pilot Gene Summers (Paul Massie) is selected by Maj. Kimball (John Crawford) to go on a mission to Nazi-occupied Paris and there kill a man believed to be a double agent working in the French Resistance. He is picked because of his fluency in French and military experience. Summers receives rigorous training by his handler Maj. MacMahon (Eddie Albert) and a British Naval Commander (James Robertson Justice). Summers is enthusiastic, and remembers all of the information he needs by setting his instructions to melodies of childhood songs.
Arriving in France, Summers meets his contact, Leonie (Irene Worth), a seamstress working for the Resistance. Leonie gives Summers more information about the man he is to assassinate. Upon meeting Marcel Lafitte (Leslie French), the man he is to kill, Summers has second thoughts. Lafitte is a gentle henpecked husband, who dotes on his cat "Mimieux." Summers begins to feel that the man may not be guilty.
Summers runs back to Leonie who rebukes him for his foolish error in weakening his mission and returning to her, a dangerous combination. Leonie points out to Summers that he dropped hundreds of bombs on people while he was a pilot. Summers protests, as he understands the difference between killing a lot of people and one person up close. "When I dropped bombs I wasn't there at the other end." Leonie apologizes for her curt behavior and explains to him that her son was killed in the War.
His confidence regained, Summers prepared to kill Lafitte. Summers first cracks a blunt object over the man's head, but the killing is botched. Lafitte is not dead, and, turning over to look directly up into the eyes of the young man, asks him, "Why?" Summers kills Lafitte with a pair of scissors. In a panic, Summers steals money off Lafitte's table to make the scene look like a robbery.
Narrowly escaping the Gestapo, Summers hides the money in a cemetery, and tries to contact Leonie, but it is too late. The Nazis have captured her. Racked with guilt, Summers goes off into the night, not to be heard of again.
Several months later, after Paris has been liberated, Maj. MacMahon is giving the newly promoted Colonel Kimball a tour of the now liberated Paris and informs Colonel Kimball that Summers is in a military hospital. After the assassination, Summers became a drunkard, using the money he stole from Lafitte to pay for his addiction. Summers finds out that Leonie was killed by the Nazis after her capture and at first, the Major and the Colonel try to convince him that Lafitte was guilty. However, Summers learns from MacMahon that Lafitte was innocent after all.
In the final scene of the film, Summers leaves the hospital and for the first time, visits Lafitte's wife and daughter, who are now impoverished. Unable to tell them the truth, Summers tells them both that Lafitte was one of their best agents in the Resistance, and offers them the small compensation of his own back pay.

Tags: murder

Review:
A powerful movie with tremendous moral dilemmas & lessons to be contemplated.
This World War II movie has a realistic well written script, good acting and presents the viewer with a powerful moral dilemma to contemplate about war.
This is a quietly gripping movie about a man ordered to kill a traitor in wartime France.
The protagonist bonds with his quarry and his family and agonizes over following his orders to kill.
To find out whether he kills the man and whether he is guilty or innocent you'll need to see this..
This remarkable little film contains some excellent performances, the best of all coming from Irene Worth (Leonie, Paul's contact in occupied Paris), and from Leslie French as the suspected informer Lafitte.
The musical score too is noteworthy, particularly when it picks up a nursery tune used by Paul to commit details of his mission to memory and amplifies it to emphasise the horrible consequences.
The script and handling of Paul's doubts (brushed aside by Worth) and finally the completion of his mission are unforgettable.
It should be noted that this is one of the best scripts from the film critic Paul Dehn - he also made a notable contribution to Jack Clayton's fine film "The Innocents"..
Two great actresses, Lillian Gish and Irene Worth, are in it.
It's a suspenseful film about World War II and the scenes in Paris are particularly gripping.
I've searched in vain for this very fine movie, which I saw many years ago and has clung firmly to my memory.
It's about a cocky young soldier who is sent to kill a French collaborator.
He later develops serious moral qualms about the mission.This film has a fine cast and has some very interesting touches.
An interesting & emotionally powerful war film..
I saw this film on the late show about 25 years ago & haven't seen it since but I still remember much of it vividly.
A soldier is parachuted into occupied France during World War II & is "ordered to kill" a resistance leader who is believed to have been collaborating with the Nazis.
He expresses his doubts to his superiors, but they order him to continue his mission.
Spoiler alertWhat I remember most about this film is the way the idealistic young soldier in manipulated by a wheeler-dealer senior officer who is essentially a self serving bureaucrat.
As it turns out in the film, an innocent man is killed, a young man must live with having killed an innocent harmless man in cold blood.
As for the young man in the film, he had to learn the hard way.
A soldier is sent to France to kill a Nazi sympathizer.
Paul Massie, Eddie Albert, Leslie French, and Irene Worth star in "Orders to Kill," a 1958 film produced and directed by Anthony Asquith.Done in a low-key, realistic way, the story concerns a young American soldier, Gene Summers (Massie) who is chosen to go to France to kill an attorney who was a Resistance member, Lafitte (French) but has become a traitor.
His contact in France is Leonie (Irene Worth).All goes well until Summers actually meets LaFitte, who saves him from a Nazi roundup by hiding him in his office.
Leonie is a hard-nose and insists that he carry out his orders.Talky and slow-moving through a good deal of the film, it changes suddenly and becomes very suspenseful and exciting.
Everyone underplays, making them somehow more realistic in their war-torn surroundings.Everyone is very good, but Irene Worth, a fantastic actress, Leslie French, and Eddie Albert are standouts.
A realistic espionage film about a wartime assassin's dilemma.
I remember being mesmerized by the gritty reality of this movie and the fine portrayal of the agent/assassin as played by Eddie Albert.
It remains what is perhaps one of his most serious roles, and the film reveals a side of his talent rarely revealed in his other movies.
Within the broad theatre of war it focuses on the moral impact of "orders" on a sensitive personality.
The film never goes into an examination of who was responsible for the false intelligence behind the mission.
ORDERS TO KILL looks and feels like a straightforward wartime thriller at the outset.
It features Paul Massie (the Canadian actor best known for playing the lead in THE TWO FACES OF DR.
JEKYLL, a role he no doubt got on the strength of his fine conflicted performance here) as an American agent who is parachuted into occupied France to take down a French traitor whose association with various resistance fighters has seen many of them die.During his early training scenes with the delightfully gruff James Robertson Justice, Massie seems like the ideal man for the job.
Things are a little different in the field: he soon finds himself questioning the man's guilt, and ORDERS TO KILL becomes a very different type of film all of a sudden: an intense 'moral dilemma' movie which puts the protagonist and the viewers through the ringer.The only fault I can find with this film is that it's slightly overlong and some of the early scenes drag a little.
ORDERS TO KILL is a fine thriller without a single action scene in it to distract from the storyline..
This wartime tale directed by Anthony Asquith confronts full-on the essential moral dilemma of the necessity to commit murder in the cause of war.
It does not take place on a battlefield, but in the starker situation of a covert assassination of a man believed to be compromising the Resistance Movement in occupied Paris.
The man chosen to kill the suspected person is played by the young actor Paul Massie, aged 26.
The most powerful performance in this film was delivered by Irene Worth, as the character Léonie.
Massie is sent to Paris to kill the suspect man, and Worth is his contact, with whom some very tense scenes indeed transpire.
Lillian Gish appears briefly early on in the film as Massie's mother, but it is not a significant part.
Eddie Albert is very good as a commanding officer, and James Robertson Justice has immense gravitas and a suitably ominous quality as the man who trains Massie how to kill an individual quietly and quickly by taking off a pair of long socks and turning them into a murder weapon.
Leslie French is superb as the unfortunate Marcel Lafitte, who is wrongly suspected of having betrayed the Resistance, whereas he is not only innocent but a gentle, caring soul who loves his family and his cat and would not hurt a fly.
This film starts very slowly because Asquith and his writers are so keen to make their moral point that they dwell on the minutiae of Massie's recruitment and training to carry out his assignment.
Once the action gets going, the film becomes very tense indeed, and finally it becomes very grim, as we face the moral dilemma.
Asquith was clearly determined to make this film in this way because he was trying to examine the dilemma and drive home its insolubility.
Much of it is filmed on location in Paris, and there are some very fine and atmospheric location shots.
This film evidently meant a great deal to Anthony Asquith, who had a social conscience which he wore somewhat on his sleeve, and we owe him the consideration of listening to his message, which after all is a very worrying one, even if we find it deeply disquieting..
Worth a look at, as it is interesting all the way through with the plot and the acting.
Not the usual war film, and raises some questions for those who are unappreciative (me) of the dilemmas of going to war.
The protagonist starts off all confident in this assignment, and when confronted with the realities of war, he has serious misgivings.The film begins with a terrific opening scene, which gripped me from the start (would have been better in colour), and then moves along to develop the plot.
Mention must be made that Irene Worth, is very good in this movie, and the look of horror on her face when disclosed information she does not want to know is well delivered.
The other main actors are also very good, although I did wonder about James Robertson Justice being included, and there are one or two questionable scenes, which reminded me a little of John Cleese and Monty Python's - "Attack me with a banana sketch", but he does have one particular scene which I am prepared to forgive any others for.If you like the sound of this and wondering if to view or not, then I would say yes, it's worth it.
If 1950's black and white movies about war are not for you, then skip it, although it's not the usual type of war film..
As the Allies are preparing the D-Day invasion, an American bomber pilot (Paul Massie) is recruited to be sent to occupied France to kill a member of the Resistance (Leslie French) who is suspected of supplying the names of fighters to the Germans.
Each part of the film, the recruiting, training and the mission itself, is expertly done.
The film shows the excellent acting of Eddie Albert who plays an American officer who monitors Massie's training and then his deployment on a night flight to be parachuted into occupied France, where he is to be on his own except for his one contact played by Irene Worth, whose part turns out to be the best one in the film.
The title pretty much sums up the dilemma that faces Massie as he's the one ordered to carry out the execution..
During World War II, American-born bomber pilot Paul Massie (as Gene Summers) is sent from Boston to England, then German-occupied Paris.
His mission is to assassinate a man secretly spying for the Nazis.
In the event he is captured, Mr. Massie is trained in the art of interrogation and undercover work, by Eddie Albert (as Major "Mac" McMahon) and James Robertson Justice.
His training complete, Massie is given the French identity "Jean Doumier" and arrives in Paris via parachute...When Massie meets his target, small-time lawyer Leslie French (as Marcel Lafitte), he has second thoughts.
Massie thinks Mr. French may be innocent and shares his reservations with French resistance fighter Irene Worth (as Leonie).
She reminds Massie of his "Orders to Kill"...Some of the build-up is tedious, but this turns out to be an intelligent drama about the morality of war...Note that the American stars' billing is exaggerated; top-billed Eddie Albert is a supporting actor to Massie, who is the star of the film.
The adaptation by Paul Dehn, direction by Anthony Asquith, and cast are excellent.******* Orders to Kill (7/25/58) Anthony Asquith ~ Paul Massie, Eddie Albert, Irene Worth, Lillian Gish.
I would like to obtain this film on video or DVD.
I saw this film years ago and was struck by the difference in killing by pressing a button and dropping bombs or by one-to-one combat.
Although I am not really a pacifist, I do believe that this film makes you think very hard about the futility of war and about how one's actions can desecrate the lives of others.
I saw this film as a fifteen year old when it was first released.
Anthony Asquith,son of the Earl of Oxford,public school and University - educated,was a charming,intelligent and sophisticated man who made films that tended to reflect his personality."Pygmalion","The Winslow Boy","The Browning Version" were all popular with the moviegoers of Middle England who comprised his core audience.But in the late 1950s he suddenly changed tack and produced two extraordinary works debating the nature of courage,moral and physical."Carrington VC" starred David Niven,and "Orders to kill" featured Associated British contract actor Paul Massie.
Canadian - born Mr Massie - slim,aesthetic - looking and sensitive - had a somewhat irregular movie career but won a richly - deserved BAFTA for "Most promising newcomer" for his performance as a French - speaking American flyer sent over to Occupied France to assassinate a Resistance member turned traitor.
He is willing if not happy to kill from 20,000 feet up,but mano a mano is quite a different matter,particularly as the more research he does on his putative victim the more doubts he has about the man's guilt.
"Orders to kill" brings into question the ethics of war just as "Carrington VC" does its effects on the individual.
Will Massie's moral scruples be interpreted as cowardice by London in just the same fashion as would his refusal to fly any more bombing missions on similar grounds?
Not a War Film per se,"Orders to Kill" remains the British Cinema's finest examination of the minutiae of man's conduct in time of conflict.
Generally ignored when Puffin Asquith's movies are discussed,it is criminally neglected and the work of a man of conscience who understood such insubstantial words as "Duty" and "Courage" and wasn't afraid to put a debate about their meaning to the cinema audience..
The U.S. decides that the man, Leslie French, must be a double agent working for the Germans.
The man, Paul Massie, just happens to have lived in the same area of Paris where French lives.
They also teach him various ways of killing quietly.One of training officers, Eddie Albert, is not quite sure that Massie is the right man.
Albert's boss, Johnny Crawford sees no problem and orders the training to carry on.
"Lives are at risk!" Crawford says.Massie is soon ready and dropped outside Paris.
He is to meet with an Underground contact, Irene Worth, who will put him up etc.
While having a drink in the downstairs café, Massie bumps right into French.
French seems like a nice sort, and warns him not to order the rabbit stew as it is really cat.
French offers the man a room in his office upstairs to hide in.Sure enough, the raid happens and several men are grabbed up and hauled away.
Massie spends the night in French's office looking for evidence he is a turncoat.
French returns the next morning and invites Massie to dine with his wife and daughter that evening.
Massie is finding that the more time he spends with his target, the more convinced he is that French is innocent.Massie contact's Worth and asks what he should do?.
The next morning Massie returns to French's office.
When French turns his back to brew up some tea, Massie, belts him with a handy blunt object on the back of the head.
He visits Massie in the hospital and finds that the man is being eaten up by guilt over killing French.
Once Crawford has left, Massie asks Albert for the truth.
Albert tells him that French turned out to be innocent.
Also in the cast, are James Robertson Justice, Sandra Dorne, Lionel Jefferies and Lillian Gish.Canadian Paul Massie won a BAFTA Award for his role in this film.
Though the film builds slowly, it is worth staying till the pay off.
Every Sunday in the UK Talking Pictures, a fairly new channel that screens only movies, publishes its schedule for the next seven days and I go through it checking titles I want to see; when I saw Orders To Kill I thought it would be well worth missing but then I noticed that it was directed by Puffin Asquith which made it almost obligatory.
I wasn't disappointed; Orders To Kill is a fine movie with a moral question at its core.
In brief; a man is recruited to kill a resistance worker suspected of treachery in World War II.
Having met the target by chance he bonds with him and decides he is innocent, says as much to his 'contact' who reminds him he is under orders.
He kills the target who, it turns out, is innocent.
Irene Worth runs away with the picture as the 'contact' whilst newcomer Paul Massie succeeds in conveying the moral dilemma in which he finds himself.
This movie ,in spite of its tragic plot,shows Asquith's infatuation with France :not only the hero is served a delicious quiche Lorraine in one of the first scenes ,but he also used an old French song from long ago;besides, the stand out of his work is arguably English actor Leslie French(!) ,really admirable in the scenes with his pussycat,the victim who can ask why ,unlike the people who die during the bombings .There is also a strange use of this old French folk song from 1792 ,"Cadet Rousselle":no,it's not a Chanson about Revolution;it actually makes its hero an object of ridicule:the first lines go like this: "Cadet Rousselle A Trois Maisons Qui N'Ont Ni Poutres Ni Chevrons " "Cadet Rousselle has got three houses which have neither beams nor rafters (...)it's to put up the swallows..)This choice may be bewildering for a French viewer who may wonder whether they did not choose stuff like " Auprès De Ma blonde" ;probably because the dear lady who taught our hero the FRench language taught him this song and to both of them ,it's a dear memory.That said ,it's disappointing that French is almost never used in France ,even when the Parisians speak between them.The first third,including training with James Robertson Justice ,is a bit slow-moving ,and Mrs Lilian Gish is wasted ;but the movie hits its stride in the second third and grabs the viewer till the end .The principal,Paul Massie, gets good support from Irene Worth as Leonie ,a woman war has hardened ,and particularly Leslie French,whose very moving performance was hailed by French critic Jean Tulard .The screenplay puts the blame on the absurdity of war ;the victim loves cats ("but so does Himmler" Leonie hastens to add).The famous proverb " you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs" does not give a meaning to what he did .You will not forget the little girl who played Cinderella's wicked sister ,and ,in real life ,had to play the part of an orphan of the war.