Operation Mincemeat [DVD] [2022]

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In addition, other notable historical figures are briefly included in the film, with Alexander Beyer as Karl Kuhlenthal, Nico Birnbaum as Colonel Alexis von Roenne and Pep Tosar as Admiral Moreno. This was part of the appeal for writer Michelle Ashford, who adapted Macintyre's book for the screen, having read and loved it when it was first published. "It's almost like a Valentine to spy stories," she says. "And how ironic that the creator of James Bond was actually one of the architects of the story."

The Radio Times wrote, "the picture may appear overly reverent by today's standards. But this is still a crucial wartime spy tale that is well worth watching." [9] The Goon Show parody [ edit ] It falls to the two intelligence officers Ewen Montagu - played by Colin Firth - and Charles Cholmondeley - played by Matthew Macfayden - who dream up an inspired and improbable disinformation strategy. Their idea is to fool Nazi Germany into thinking their plan is to invade Greece and Sardinia instead - by dressing up the corpse of a homeless man as a Royal Marine and planting bogus documents on him that point towards the fake invasion. In 1943, the United Kingdom is entrenched in World War II. Lieutenant Commander Ewen Montagu, a Jewish barrister, remains in England while his wife Iris and their children travel to safety in the United States. Montagu takes a break from practising law when he is appointed to the Twenty Committee. His secretary, Hester Leggett, comes with him.The film is based on an extraordinary and true story. It is an adaptation of the nonfiction book of the same name by Ben Macintyre. The logic-defying plan risks the lives of thousands of soldiers and tests the nerves of its creators to breaking point. But will it succeed? Is Operation Mincemeat a true story? The fact of much of the acting company having had what is now called 'lived experience' [of destitution] added authenticity and power," he adds. It's a story so fantastic and macabre that it feels like the product of a writer's imagination. In 1943, at the height of World War Two, British Intelligence agents hatched an elaborate scheme to convince the Germans that the Allied forces were planning to invade Greece rather than Sicily. The plan, code-named Operation Mincemeat, involved planting forged documents upon a dead body before setting him adrift in neutral Spanish waters, with the aim of the papers ending up in German hands.

This article is about the 1956 film. For the 2022 film based on the same operation, see Operation Mincemeat (film). For the memoir by then-Lt. Cmdr. Ewen Montagu, see The Man Who Never Was (book).After months of careful preparations, the decomposing remains were planted in the sea near Spain's coast, in a Hail Mary effort to get Nazi spies to find the forged papers. This, the British intelligence officers hoped, would lead the German higher-ups to move their army to a tactically vulnerable position. Of course, such a strange plan couldn't possibly wrap up in a straightforward manner, and the operation ultimately involved all sorts of twists and turns. Now, the film's arrival in UK cinemas (before it comes to Netflix in North and Latin America in May) coincides with the return to UK stages of a hit musical about the very same story, also called Operation Mincemeat. The show, devised by theatre company SpitLip, started life on the London fringe in 2019 and has since played several sell out runs at increasingly larger spaces.