We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
"IT WAS OUR AIM to give this picture all the blunt realism of Frank Planer. "That is why there are in this film no stock shots,
a U. S. Army Signal Corps documentary," said cinematographer no miniatures, and no special-effects photography."
"Decision Before Down”
. . . photographed entirely on location in Germany, in actual locales.
By HERB A. LIGHTMAN
IN FILMING “Decision Before Dawn” for 20th Century-Fox, director of photography Frank Planer, A.S.C., was faced with some of the most challenging problems to confront a cameraman.
Here was a dynamic theme set against the rapidly changing dramatic back¬ ground of Germany under siege — a story to be filmed entirely on location in actual locales, without the usual con¬ veniences and technical facilities of the studio. It was to be a hard-hitting, man s story — devoid of beauty and glamor — accenting life, action and death.
It is all of that and more — a dramat¬ ically absorbing photoplay, featuring some of the most brilliant photography of this or any year.
“Decision Before Dawn’* is the dra¬
matic and little-known story of a small band of captured German soldiers who agreed to spy for the American Army behind enemy lines during World War II. The top-notch spy thriller was adapted from George Howe’s $15,000 Christopher Award novel “Call It Treason,” which is based on a series of true incidents that occurred in the wartime Intelligence Unit with which Howe served.
The film details the adventures of a young German soldier who loves his country, but decides that he can best help Germany by helping to defeat it’s regime. Agreeing to spy for the Ameri¬ cans, he is parachuted behind German lines. Contact with his own people under siege confirms his decision. While the
Gestapo closes in on him, he continues to do his job, sacrificing himself in his own way for his country.
The making of “Decision Before Dawn” represented one of the most diffi¬ cult motion picture productions ever undertaken. To recreate the background vista of war-battered Germany of five years earlier, producer-director Anatole Litvak and associate producer Frank McCarthy spent months in early 1949 roaming Western Germany looking for locations to be used in the film. As a result of their search, the studio unit traveled more than 2,000 miles through¬ out the French and American zones of occupation to film sequences in 16 cities and hamlets. Locations, shot in the 79 shooting days, included: Munich, Nu
62
American Cinematographer
February, 1952