The Heroes of Telemark war movie

The Heroes of Telemark (1965, United Kingdom)

Categories: resistance movies winter movies

The Heroes of Telemark

Director: Anthony Mann

Czas: 132 minut

Laguages: English / German / Norwegian

war movies infoAdam 'Frey' Barczynski
2024-04-07 / 1970-01-01

Norwegian resistance discovers German heavy water plant that could give Nazis the resources to build atomic bombs. Allies prepare plan to destroy the installation.

Occupied Norway, 1942. Rolf Pedersen, a Norwegian physics professor at the Oslo University is happy to keep low profile and stay away from problems. His life is changed when he is approached at the university by mysterious man from the resistance, who presents him with plans. Pedersen quickly realizes that those are the plans of heavy water production plant that Germans would use to build atomic bomb. Knut Straud, the mysterious man, convinces Pedersen to join the Norwegian resistance and stop the Nazis. Their first step is to travel to United Kingdom, where they present their findings to Allied intelligence. The conclusion is simple - Germans must be stopped by any means from building atomic bombs. Pedersen and Straud are dropped on parachutes back to Norway to take care of first part of the Operation Freshman. The plan was to prepare the landing zone for gliders on which unit of Royal Engineers would be dropped into Norway. Later the engineers with help of Norwegian resistance would attack the Vemork Hydroelectric Plant and blow up the heavy water installation. Unfortunately the gliders crash during the landing killing all the 50 British soldiers aboard. Straud decides to carry on with the plan, even though instead of 50 soldiers he only has 7 resistance fighters and Vemork Plant is heavily guarded.

British war movie presenting the true story of Operation Freshman and Operation Gunnerside, two attempts of Norwegian resistance and Allied forces to stop German production of heavy water that was vital in plan of producing atomic bombs, which could have gave the Nazis huge advantage and change outcome of the war. Although film is based on those operations some of the parts of the story were dramatised. With involving plot and very good cast The Heroes of Telemark could have been among the classic war movies. Unfortunately too many scenes that had very little to do with the military operations were added and the final version of the movie is only average.

Our rating

6.8

Film value

6 / 10

Realism factor

4 / 5

Adventure factor

3 / 5

Historical accuracy

4 / 5

2024-04-07

The Heroes of Telemark full movie

---