Betrayed (1954 film)
Encyclopedia
Betrayed is a 1954 war
drama film
made by MGM. It was directed by Gottfried Reinhardt, from a screenplay
by Ronald Millar
and George Froeschel
. The music score was by Walter Goehr
and Bronislau Kaper, the cinematography by Freddie Young
.
The film stars Lana Turner
, Victor Mature
and Clark Gable
with Louis Calhern
, O. E. Hasse, Wilfrid Hyde-White
, Ian Carmichael
, Niall MacGinnis
and Theodore Bikel
.
Betrayed was Gable's last film for MGM. It was also spoofed in the film Top Secret!
.
movement during World War II
.
Dutch intelligence agent Pieter Deventer (Clark Gable) is ordered to keep his eyes on suspected quisling
Fran Seelers (Lana Turner). Both Deventer and Seelers join the Dutch underground, making contact with a flamboyant resistance leader known as "The Scarf" (Victor Mature).
As 'Carla Van Oven', Seelers' assignment is to use her feminine charms to gain the confidence of admiring Nazi
officers. Within the next few weeks, several underground operatives are captured and shot, and it begins to look as though Deventer's suspicions concerning Seelers are correct. However, the real collaborator is eventually unmasked as being "The Scarf" himself.
and bellowed his boasts a score of times. An excess of espionage maneuvering has been laid out on the screen. The beauties of the countryside of the Netherlands have been looked at until they pall."
War film
War films are a film genre concerned with warfare, usually about naval, air or land battles, sometimes focusing instead on prisoners of war, covert operations, military training or other related subjects. At times war films focus on daily military or civilian life in wartime without depicting battles...
drama film
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
made by MGM. It was directed by Gottfried Reinhardt, from a screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
by Ronald Millar
Ronald Millar
Sir Ronald Graeme Millar was an English actor, writer and dramatist.Ronald Millar joined the Royal Navy in 1940 after having studied at King's College, Cambridge, England, for a year. He established himself as a playwright after the second world war, and between 1948 and 1954 lived in Hollywood,...
and George Froeschel
George Froeschel
Georg "George" Froeschel was an Austrian screenwriter best known for Mrs. Miniver, Quentin Durward, and The Story of Three Loves, while working for MGM in the 1940s and 1950s. Before working in film he was a lawyer and journalist.-Biography:Georg Froeschel was born in 1891, the son of a Jewish...
. The music score was by Walter Goehr
Walter Goehr
Walter Goehr was a German composer and conductor.Goehr was born in Berlin where studied with Arnold Schoenberg and embarked on a conducting career, before being forced as a Jew to seek employment outside Germany, while working for Berlin Radio in 1932. He was invited to become music director for...
and Bronislau Kaper, the cinematography by Freddie Young
Freddie Young
Freddie Young OBE, BSC , was one of Britain's most distinguished and influential cinematographers...
.
The film stars Lana Turner
Lana Turner
Lana Turner was an American actress.Discovered and signed to a film contract by MGM at the age of sixteen, Turner first attracted attention in They Won't Forget . She played featured roles, often as the ingenue, in such films as Love Finds Andy Hardy...
, Victor Mature
Victor Mature
Victor John Mature was an American stage, film and television actor.-Early life:Mature was born in Louisville, Kentucky to an Italian-speaking father from the town Pinzolo, in the Italian part of the former County of Tyrol , Marcello Gelindo Maturi, later Marcellus George Mature, a cutler,...
and Clark Gable
Clark Gable
William Clark Gable , known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh...
with Louis Calhern
Louis Calhern
Louis Calhern was an American stage and screen actor.- Early life :Louis Calhern was born Carl Henry Vogt on February 19, 1895 in Brooklyn, New York. His family left New York City while he was still a child and moved to St. Louis, Missouri where he grew up...
, O. E. Hasse, Wilfrid Hyde-White
Wilfrid Hyde-White
Wilfrid Hyde-White was an English character actor.-Early life and career:Wilfrid Hyde White was born at the rectory in Bourton-on-the-Water in Gloucestershire, the son of William Edward White, canon of Gloucester Cathedral, and his wife, Ethel Adelaide Drought...
, Ian Carmichael
Ian Carmichael
Ian Gillett Carmichael, OBE was an English film, stage, television and radio actor.-Early life:Carmichael was born in Hull, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The son of an optician, he was educated at Scarborough College and Bromsgrove School, before training as an actor at RADA...
, Niall MacGinnis
Niall MacGinnis
Niall MacGinnis was an Irish actor who made 80 screen appearances.-Early life:MacGinnis was born in Dublin in 1913. He was educated at Stonyhurst College in England, and studied medicine at Dublin University. He qualified as a house surgeon...
and Theodore Bikel
Theodore Bikel
Theodore Meir Bikel is a character actor, folk singer and musician. He made his film debut in The African Queen and was nominated for an Academy award for his supporting role as Sheriff Max Muller in The Defiant Ones ....
.
Betrayed was Gable's last film for MGM. It was also spoofed in the film Top Secret!
Top Secret!
Top Secret! is a 1984 comedy film directed by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker. It stars Val Kilmer , Lucy Gutteridge, Omar Sharif, Peter Cushing, Michael Gough and Jeremy Kemp. The film is a parody of the GDR era and Elvis films...
.
Plot
Betrayed is an espionage thriller set in the Dutch resistanceDutch resistance
Dutch resistance to the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during World War II can be mainly characterized by its prominent non-violence, summitting in over 300,000 people in hiding in the autumn of 1944, tended to by some 60,000 to 200,000 illegal landlords and caretakers and tolerated knowingly...
movement during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Dutch intelligence agent Pieter Deventer (Clark Gable) is ordered to keep his eyes on suspected quisling
Quisling
Quisling is a term used in reference to fascist and collaborationist political parties and military and paramilitary forces in occupied Allied countries which collaborated with Axis occupiers in World War II, as well as for their members and other collaborators.- Etymology :The term was coined by...
Fran Seelers (Lana Turner). Both Deventer and Seelers join the Dutch underground, making contact with a flamboyant resistance leader known as "The Scarf" (Victor Mature).
As 'Carla Van Oven', Seelers' assignment is to use her feminine charms to gain the confidence of admiring Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
officers. Within the next few weeks, several underground operatives are captured and shot, and it begins to look as though Deventer's suspicions concerning Seelers are correct. However, the real collaborator is eventually unmasked as being "The Scarf" himself.
Cast
- Clark GableClark GableWilliam Clark Gable , known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh...
as Colonel Pieter Deventer - Lana TurnerLana TurnerLana Turner was an American actress.Discovered and signed to a film contract by MGM at the age of sixteen, Turner first attracted attention in They Won't Forget . She played featured roles, often as the ingenue, in such films as Love Finds Andy Hardy...
as Carla Van Oven - Victor MatureVictor MatureVictor John Mature was an American stage, film and television actor.-Early life:Mature was born in Louisville, Kentucky to an Italian-speaking father from the town Pinzolo, in the Italian part of the former County of Tyrol , Marcello Gelindo Maturi, later Marcellus George Mature, a cutler,...
as 'The Scarf' - Louis CalhernLouis CalhernLouis Calhern was an American stage and screen actor.- Early life :Louis Calhern was born Carl Henry Vogt on February 19, 1895 in Brooklyn, New York. His family left New York City while he was still a child and moved to St. Louis, Missouri where he grew up...
as General Ten Eyck - O.E. HasseO.E. HasseOtto Eduard Hasse was a German film actor and director.- Biography :Hasse was born to Wilhelm Gustav Eduard Hasse, a blacksmith, and Valeria Hasse in the village of Obersitzko, Province of Posen, Imperial Germany and gained his first stage experiences at highschool at Kolmar together with his...
as Colonel Helmuth Dietrich - Wilfrid Hyde-WhiteWilfrid Hyde-WhiteWilfrid Hyde-White was an English character actor.-Early life and career:Wilfrid Hyde White was born at the rectory in Bourton-on-the-Water in Gloucestershire, the son of William Edward White, canon of Gloucester Cathedral, and his wife, Ethel Adelaide Drought...
as General Charles Larraby - Ian CarmichaelIan CarmichaelIan Gillett Carmichael, OBE was an English film, stage, television and radio actor.-Early life:Carmichael was born in Hull, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The son of an optician, he was educated at Scarborough College and Bromsgrove School, before training as an actor at RADA...
as Captain Jackie Lawson - Niall MacGinnisNiall MacGinnisNiall MacGinnis was an Irish actor who made 80 screen appearances.-Early life:MacGinnis was born in Dublin in 1913. He was educated at Stonyhurst College in England, and studied medicine at Dublin University. He qualified as a house surgeon...
as Blackie - Nora SwinburneNora SwinburneNora Swinburne was a British actress, born Leonora Mary Johnson in Bath, Somerset, daughter of Henry Swinburne Johnson and his wife Leonora Tamar ....
as The Scarf's Mother - Roland CulverRoland CulverRoland Culver OBE was a British stage, film, and television actor.-Life and career:...
as General Warsleigh - Leslie WestonLeslie Weston-Selected filmography:* Glamour Girl * They Drive by Night * Two for Danger * We Dive at Dawn * Send for Paul Temple * Green Fingers * My Brother Jonathan * Corridor of Mirrors...
as Pop - Christopher RhodesChristopher RhodesSir Christopher George Rhodes, 3rd Baronet was an English film and television actor.-Early life:Rhodes was the only son of Sir John Rhodes, 2nd Baronet, and was educated at Eton College and Magdalen College, Oxford. During the Second World War he served with the Essex Regiment, reaching the rank...
as Chris - Lily Kann as Jan's Grandmother
- Brian Smith as Jan
- Anton DiffringAnton DiffringAnton Diffring , born Alfred Pollack, was a German actor.-Biography:Diffring was born in Koblenz...
as Captain Von Stanger
Critical reception
In a 1954 New York Times review, critic Bosley Crowther wrote "By the time this picture gets around to figuring out whether the betrayer is Miss Turner or Mr. Mature, it has taken the audience through such a lengthy and tedious amount of detail that it has not only frayed all possible tension but it has aggravated patience as well. Miss Turner and Mr. Gable have had many long-winded talks; Mr. Mature has thumped his chest like TarzanTarzan
Tarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungles by the Mangani "great apes"; he later experiences civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer...
and bellowed his boasts a score of times. An excess of espionage maneuvering has been laid out on the screen. The beauties of the countryside of the Netherlands have been looked at until they pall."