49th Parallel (released in the United States as The Invaders) is a 1941 British epic war drama film, the third made by the team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It stars Leslie Howard, Laurence Olivier, Anton Walbrook, Raymond Massey, Glynis Johns and Eric Portman. The plot involves a German U-boat crew that is stranded in Canada, and attempts to cross into the then-neutral United States.

The film was conceived as a propaganda vehicle by the British Ministry of Information, intended to sway American involvement in World War II. The title refers to the 49th parallel north circle of latitude, which separates Canada from the United States.

The film was released in Britain on November 24, 1941. It was both a critical and a commercial success, and was one of the highest-grossing British films of 1941.

Heading south, the floatplane exhausts its fuel and crashes into a lake in Manitoba, killing Kuhnecke. The Germans are welcomed by a nearby Hutterite farming community. Hirth assumes that the Hutterites are sympathetic to the Nazi cause, but his fanatical speech is refuted by Peter, the community's leader. One of the sailors, Vogel, would rather join the community, but he is tried by Hirth and executed for desertion and treachery.

Hirth, Lohrmann and Kranz arrive in Winnipeg. Hirth decides that they will travel west to Vancouver and catch a steamship for Japan. They hijack a car and then board a train that stops in Banff, Alberta, during Banff Indian Days. A Canadian Mountie addresses the crowd and Kranz is arrested when he panics.

Fleeing across the Rocky Mountains, the two remaining men are welcomed to a lakeside camp by eccentric English writer Philip Armstrong Scott, who takes them for lost tourists. After they burn his manuscript and precious paintings, Scott and his men pursue them. Lohrmann finally rebels against Hirth's leadership and takes off by himself. Lohrmann is cornered in a cave. Scott is wounded but enters the cave and beats Lohrmann unconscious.

Hirth, the last fugitive, meets Andy Brock, a Canadian soldier who is absent without leave, in a freight car on a train near the international border. Hirth knocks Brock unconscious with the butt of his gun and steals his uniform and dog tags. After the train crosses the border at Niagara Falls, Hirth surrenders his gun to a customs official and demands to be taken to the German embassy. Brock tells the official that Hirth, now globally famous, is wanted in Canada for murder. The customs officials are powerless to do anything, but then Brock has an inspiration: he says that because neither man is listed on the freight manifest, they cannot enter the country. Using this technicality, the officials reject the cargo and send the train back to Canada. As the train passes over the bridge, Brock dons his uniform cap and announces his intent to take back his pants.

Cast

;The Canadians

;The Americans

;The U-boat crew

Production

Development

The British Ministry of Information approached Michael Powell to produce a propaganda film, suggesting minesweeping as the subject. Powell instead desired to make a film to help sway opinion in the neutral United States. Powell persuaded the British and Canadian governments and started location filming in 1940, but by the time the film appeared in March 1942, the U.S. was already involved in the war. Powell's interest in creating a propaganda film in Canada dovetailed with some of Pressburger's work. The screenplay was initially based on Pressburger's idea to replicate the Ten Little Indians scenario of people being removed from a group, one by one. Arthur Horman, who wrote several sequences, later wrote Desperate Journey, a film with a similar story. Powell's voice can be heard faintly in some of the submarine scenes. Once, when the camera boat almost collides with the submarine, Powell says, "Keep rolling." The American film trailer was made on the set of the film The Talk of the Town under the title It Happened One Noon, with stars Cary Grant, Jean Arthur and Ronald Colman telling director George Stevens about seeing the exciting film during a two-hour lunch break.

Box office

According to Kinematograph Weekly, 49th Parallel was the most popular film at the British box office in 1941. The Times attributed the success of the film to the enthusiasm of Odeon Cinemas founder Oscar Deutsch.

Variety estimated that the film earned $1.3 million in U.S. rentals in 1942. The film earned a total of $5 million at the North American box office.

J. E. Sewell of The Daily Telegraph wrote: "It is a grown-up's film, presenting our point of view with fairness, vigour and humanity through the medium of an exciting, vivid story, and some of the best short characterizations I have ever seen. All I could wish changed is the title, which seems to me to be almost completely irrelevant."

In The New York Times, critic Bosley Crowther wrote: "Among the best of the anti-Nazi pictures which have yet been exhibited hereabouts, you can list the British-made The Invaders... For this, indeed, is a picture which not only argues trenchantly but is filmed and played with such intelligence that it gives an illusion of documented fact. ... And, except for a few static stretches and one slightly artificial sequence, it stands up with Target for Tonight as one of the memorable war films so far. For the purpose of ideological contrasts—or for tense and exciting action, too—a better story could hardly have been conceived. ... The Invaders is an absorbing and exciting film."

49th Parallel holds a 88% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 16 reviews.

Awards and nominations

Pressburger won an Oscar for Best Story and the film was nominated for Best Picture (Outstanding Motion Picture) and Best Screenplay (including Rodney Ackland for additional dialogue). Powell was nominated for Best Director by the New York Film Critics Circle.

References

Bibliography

  • 63rd place in the British Film Institute's Ultimate Film Chart
  • , with full synopsis and film stills
  • Reviews and articles at the Powell & Pressburger Pages
  • 49th Parallel: The War Effort an essay by Charles Barr at the Criterion Collection