Original / alternative title: Stawka wieksza niz zycie
Categories: covert operations movies partisans movies POW camp movies resistance movies spy movies
Stake Higher Than LifeDirector: Janusz Morgenstern, Andrzej Konic
Laguages: Polish
Polish agent disguised as German officer infiltrates the Abwehra to pass the informations to Allies.
In 1941 Polish prisoner of war, Stanislaw Kolicki, escapes from a camp where he was held by Germans and runs away towards area in control of Red Army. Soviet intelligence discoveres his close resemblance to a German officer Hans Kloss of Abwehra that is being held in their prison. They decide to use Kolicki as a double and convince Germans that he is Kloss. They teach him every little detail of Kloss’ life that they learned during the long interrogations and send him as Hans Kloss back to Nazis. At first Germans are suspicious that Kloss simply escaped from Soviet prison, so Gestapo officer Hermann Brunner keeps him under surveillance. As an Abwehra officer he has to keep low profile while dealing with the counter-interlligence duties, but at the same time he has to report to Soviet intelligence, as Codename J23, with Polish resistance and Allied agents - all of it without compromising his true identity to Germans. But even though initially Brunner buys his story of escape from Soviets he constantly tries to catch the elusive J23, suspecting it could be Kloss.
Polish TV movie series telling the fictious story of spy working undercover for Soviets as Abwehra officer. With far-fetched plot and sometimes complete disregard for historical facts the series was actually quite entertaining. Each episode was different story with different challanges for Kloss and always with Brunner keeping an eye on him, often the plots were moved between different locations (Polish or German cities, Turkey, Austria). The series presented different methods used by World War 2 spy networks and the tangled web of connections Kloss had to build in order to keep his identity a secret. Of course production lacked spectacular budget and pace of the plot sometimes left much to be desired, but still it was a decent effort.
Our rating
4.8
Film value
6 / 10
Realism factor
2 / 5
Adventure factor
3 / 5
Historical accuracy
1 / 5
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