Review: Battle of the V-1

Set during WWII and based on a book by Bernard Newman, Michael Rennie stars as a Polish schoolteacher recruited by the Polish resistance to be the inside man in an attempt at sabotaging a rocket built by the Nazis (The ‘V-1’ of the film’s title). Patricia Medina plays Rennie’s wife, Sir Christopher Lee plays a German prison camp officer.

 

Good, solid work by George Pastell and Patricia Medina still doesn’t do much for this dull WWII flick from 1958 also known as “Missiles From Hell”. Directed by Vernon Sewell (who went on to direct “Curse of the Crimson Altar” and “The Blood Beast Terror” for Tigon British) and scripted by Jack Hanley and Eryk Wlodek (neither of whom have extensive IMDb credits), the film actually starts rather well. The opening 20 minutes are stark and terrifying stuff. Sadly, after that it becomes a bog standard ‘let’s try and outsmart the Nazis’ rah-rah film with heavy use of stock footage. Also not helping things is the boring Michael Rennie as our leading man. He was fine as the stoic alien in “The Day the Earth Stood Still” but he’s stiff as a board here. Playing a German, noted Nazi killer Christopher Lee gets a rather nasty final scene but otherwise has little to do. 1957’s “The Curse of Frankenstein” and “The Horror of Dracula” (from 1958) didn’t immediately strap a rocket to him.

 

Starting with promise, this routine WWII film gets less and less interesting as it goes along, with Michael Rennie a singularly uninteresting presence in the lead. Forgettable stuff, I think I’ll just stick with “Operation Crossbow” instead.

 

Rating: C

 

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