THE HEROES OF TELEMARK (1965)

In Nazi-occupied Norway, Richard Harris is leading a group of fighters in resistance efforts, including the ambushing of Nazi vehicles—we see them use a huge boulder to knock a tank down a slope. When it is discovered that the Germans are using a local hydroelectric plant, isolated in a deep valley, to develop heavy water for use in atomic weapons, Harris heads off to Oslo to enlist physics professor Kirk Douglas to help Harris and his men stop the experiments. They manage to get in and blow up the machinery, but discover later that the Germans have more prefab parts coming, so they make the tough decision to bomb the factory and, more crucially, a ferryboat which is carrying both innocent travelers, including the widow of one of the resistance fighters and her children, and a shipment of the heavy water. This big budget mid-60s war adventure film isn't typically the kind of thing I search out, but the Norwegian resistance aspect intrigued me and I wound up enjoying it. The attempts at fleshing out the characters are about par for the course: Douglas has an ex-wife about whom he is still conflicted—but we don't really care that much—and Harris' character isn’t fleshed out at all. Still, the two actors are good (Harris, pictured at right, was quite a handsome young man) as is Michael Redgrave as the ex-wife's uncle. The action scenes are handled well by director Anthony Mann, and it helps that much of it was filmed on location. Good example of the Resistance action thriller. [TCM]