''The Secret Invasion'' is a 1964 American

war film War film is a film genre concerned with warfare, typically about navy, naval, air force, air, or army, land battles, with combat scenes central to the drama. It has been strongly associated with the 20th century. The fateful nature of battle s ...

directed by

Roger Corman Roger William Corman (born April 5, 1926) is an American film director, producer, and actor. He has been called "The Pope of Pop Cinema" and is known as a trailblazer in the world of independent film. Many of Corman's films are based on works t ...

. It stars

Stewart Granger Stewart Granger (born James Lablache Stewart; 6 May 1913 – 16 August 1993) was a British film actor, mainly associated with heroic and romantic leading roles. He was a popular leading man from the 1940s to the early 1960s, rising to fame thr ...

Raf Vallone The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's Air force, air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal ...

Mickey Rooney Mickey Rooney (born Joseph Yule Jr.; other pseudonym Mickey Maguire; September 23, 1920 – April 6, 2014) was an American actor. In a career spanning nine decades, he appeared in more than 300 films and was among the last surviving stars of the ...

Edd Byrnes Edward Byrne Breitenberger (July 30, 1932 – January 8, 2020), known professionally as Edd Byrnes, was an American actor, best known for his starring role in the television series '' 77 Sunset Strip.'' He also was featured in the 1978 film '' Gr ...

Henry Silva Henry Silva (September 23, 1926 – September 14, 2022) was an American actor. A prolific character actor, Silva was a regular staple of international genre cinema, usually playing criminals or gangsters. His notable film appearances include ...

, Mia Massini and William Campbell. Appearing three years before ''

The Dirty Dozen ''The Dirty Dozen'' is a 1967 American war film directed by Robert Aldrich and starring Lee Marvin with an ensemble supporting cast including Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, John Cassavetes, Richard Jaeckel, George Kennedy, Ralph M ...

'' (1967), the film features a similar

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

mission where convicts are recruited by the

Allies An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...

for an extremely hazardous operation behind enemy lines.

Plot

In 1943, British Intelligence in

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metr ...

recruits criminal mastermind Roberto Rocca, demolitions expert and

Irish Republican Army The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is a name used by various paramilitary organisations in Ireland throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Organisations by this name have been dedicated to irredentism through Irish republicanism, the belief th ...

member Terence Scanlon, forger Simon Fell, cold-blooded assassin John Durrell, and thief and impersonator Jean Saval for a dangerous mission. The men are offered pardons in exchange for attempting to rescue an

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

general sympathetic to the

who is imprisoned in German-occupied Yugoslavia. The group is led by Major Richard Mace, who is trying to expiate his feelings of guilt for sending his own brother on a dangerous mission and waiting too long to extricate him. The fishing boat transporting Mace's team is stopped by a patrol boat, but they dispose of the Germans. With the assistance of local partisans led by Marko, they split up and enter

Dubrovnik Dubrovnik (), historically known as Ragusa (; see notes on naming), is a city on the Adriatic Sea in the region of Dalmatia, in the southeastern semi-exclave of Croatia. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations in the Mediterranea ...

. Durrell is partnered with Mila, a recent widow with a baby. They are attracted to each other, but Durrell becomes extremely distraught when he accidentally smothers her crying child to avoid detection by a German patrol. The team is captured and taken to the same fortress where the Italian general is being kept. They are tortured for information, but manage to escape and fulfill their mission, although Mace, Mila, Fell, Scanlon and Saval are killed while fending off German troops. At the last minute, Rocca and Durrell discover that the man they have freed is an impostor, and he is about to exhort "his" troops to stay loyal to the

Axis An axis (plural ''axes'') is an imaginary line around which an object rotates or is symmetrical. Axis may also refer to: Mathematics * Axis of rotation: see rotation around a fixed axis * Axis (mathematics), a designator for a Cartesian-coordinat ...

. Durrell pretends to be a Nazi fanatic and shoots the fake general; he is killed by the outraged Italians. Rocca, the last man standing, directs the Italians' anger to the Germans.

Cast

as Major Richard Mace *

as Roberto Rocca *

as Terence Scanlon *

as Simon Fell *

as John Durrell * Mia Massini as Mila * William Campbell as Jean Saval * Helmo Kindermann as German Fortress Commander *

Enzo Fiermonte Enzo Fiermonte (17 July 1908 – 22 March 1993), sometimes credited as William Bird, was an Italian actor and boxer. Early life Vincenzo "Enzo" Fiermonte was born on 17 July 1908 in Casamassima, a rural village near Bari, in southern Italy to Do ...

as General Quadri * Peter Coe as Marko * Nan Morris as Stephana * Helmuth Schneider as German Patrol Boat Captain (credited as Helmut Schneider) *

Giulio Marchetti Giulio Marchetti (9 June 1911 – 1 December 1993) was an Italian stage, film and television actor and presenter. Life and career Born in Barcelona, Marchetti was the grandson of the operetta actor and comedian Giulio and the son of the theatr ...

as Italian Officer * Craig March as Petar Marasovic * Nicholas Rend as Captain of Fishing Boat * Todd Williams as Partisan Leader * Charles Brent as Monk * Richard Johns as Wireless Operator * Kurt Bricker as German Naval Lieutenant * Katrina Rozan as Peasant Woman * Fortunato Arena as Sailor Firing Signal Rocket (uncredited) * Mladen Cernjak as Little Boy on the Market (uncredited)

Production

After turning out a treatment based on the locale of

, Roger Corman teamed with screenwriter R. Wright Campbell who had a project, ''Dubious Patriots'' about a wartime mission involving convicts. The script was taken over by producer

David V. Picker David Victor Picker (May 14, 1931 – April 20, 2019) was an American motion picture executive and producer, working in the film industry for more than forty years. He served as president and chief executive officer for United Artists, Paramount, ...

at United Artists, who was able to leverage the screenplay into a well-financed studio production. With a budget of $600,000, more than twice more than he had for his earlier independently-funded features, Corman was able to start production in between his

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wid ...

adaptations, ''

The Masque of the Red Death "The Masque of the Red Death" (originally published as "The Mask of the Red Death: A Fantasy") is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1842. The story follows Prince Prospero's attempts to avoid a dangerous plag ...

'' and ''

The Tomb of Ligeia ''The Tomb of Ligeia'' is a 1964 British horror film directed by Roger Corman. Starring Vincent Price and Elizabeth Shepherd, it tells of a man haunted by the spirit of his dead wife and her effect on his second marriage. The screenplay by Robe ...

'' (1964). The original cast was Mickey Rooney, Raf Vallone, Edd Byrnes and Bobby Darin.

Brendan Behan Brendan Francis Aidan Behan (christened Francis Behan) ( ; ga, Breandán Ó Beacháin; 9 February 1923 – 20 March 1964) was an Irish poet, short story writer, novelist, playwright, and Irish Republican activist who wrote in both English and ...

was to be adviser for scenes set at Borstal Prison. It was Byrnes first role after his contract with Warner Bros ended. In August 1963 it was announced that Darin had pulled out of the film on the orders of his doctor, and he was replaced by Henry Silva. Also that month Stewart Granger signed to star. Principal photography under the working title of ''Dubious Patriots'' took place on location in Dubrovnik and other parts of

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label= Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavij ...

in the summer of 1963 for a typically short Corman shooting schedule of 36 days. With the assistance of the Yugoslavian government, a large number of military personnel and equipment were offered, but an earthquake threatened to delay the production when troops were siphoned off to help in the relief effort. Corman's problems extended to not only wrangling military extras, but also to dealing with the emotions of a star like Stewart Granger "stooping" to make a "B film" and worrying that his role was not as prominent as the others in the

ensemble cast In a dramatic production, an ensemble cast is one that is composed of multiple principal actors and performers who are typically assigned roughly equal amounts of screen time.Random House: ensemble acting Linked 2013-07-17 Structure In contrast t ...

. At one point, Corman actually rewrote his part "on the spot" so that Granger had more lines than Edd Byrnes, his co-star, who was a current popular television star.Stafford, Jeff
"Articles: The Secret Invasion."
''Turner Classic Movies''. Retrieved: December 30, 2014. The production was photographed in

Panavision Panavision is an American motion picture equipment company founded in 1953 specializing in cameras and lenses, based in Woodland Hills, California. Formed by Robert Gottschalk as a small partnership to create anamorphic projection lenses dur ...

with

Eastmancolor Eastmancolor is a trade name used by Eastman Kodak for a number of related film and processing technologies associated with color motion picture production and referring to George Eastman, founder of Kodak. Eastmancolor, introduced in 1950, was on ...

film. (Gene Corman later reused the title ''The Dubious Patriots'' for another film he made with Tony Curtis and Charles Bronson.)

Reception

In a contemporary review of ''The Secret Invasion'', ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' film reviewer Howard Thompson saw some positives in what was basically a "

programmer A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...

... a rather surprising amount of brisk muscularity and panoramic color, if not always credibility. The casting of this United Artists release, which arrived at the Criterion and other houses, may make some customers blink and wait for the worst ... But they, and the picture, do pretty well, considering.Thompson, Howard
"The Secret Invasion (1964); Wartime adventure is on local screens."
''The New York Times'', September 17, 1964.

In ''Brassey's Guide to War Films'', film historian Alun Evans considered the production exemplified Corman's ability to "... create something out of nothing." He also noted that ''The Secret Invasion'' has some notoriety as "... the sawn-off antecedent of ''The Dirty Dozen''."Evans 2000, p. 166.

References

Notes Citations Bibliography * Corman, Roger and Jim Jerome. ''How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never lost a Dime''. New York: Muller, 1990. . * Evans, Alun. ''Brassey's Guide to War Films''. Dulles, Virginia: Potomac Books, 2000. .

External links