On one hand, there's the humane lyricism of Renoir, but on the other hand, there's Dudley Nichol's simplistic screenplay and a honey-baked ham of performance from Laughton performance. Okay, so long as you don't expect too much.

Starts off a bit ropey and reeks of propaganda, but it really picks up about halfway through, and its faults are made up for by Laughton's performance.

The humanity of these characters shine through in what otherwise looks like a standard piece of studio-produced war propaganda. This is due, no doubt, to the skill of the fine actors in the leads, as well as the deft direction of Renoir. Laughton and O'Hara bring a great deal of soul to their parts, while Renoir ably highlights faces as he navigates an otherwise wordy script.

Laughton's characterization is effective as the meek fellow who discovers the hero within himself in this patriotic wartime flick.

A war propaganda film, and it shows at times, but Renoir puts enough in it to make stand above the crowd. Throughout the film there are a lot of small touches that shift the film from simply being anti german tyranny to anti tyranny itself. While it's nowhere near as subversive as Le Corbeau (probably because as a US production it didn't need to be) it carries some of the same undertone that everyday people can be just as complicit in the horrors of occupation as the occupiers.

Just another movie about the bad-heartless-oppressors-nazis(but not stupid, sure, that would be too much, right?), against a few brave - or who become brave through the movie -, idealists, fighting for freedom, then, there's a bunch of moral dilemmas and blah blah blah. But, Renoir took all this obviousness of the main plot, and turned in a good movie.