The Night Invader

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The Night Invader
The Night Invader film magazine cover (1943-2).jpg
From a feature on the film in Picturegoer (28 Nov 1942) [1]
Directed by Herbert Mason
Written by Roland Pertwee
Brock Williams
Based onRendezvous with Death
by John Bentley
Produced byMax Milder
Starring Anne Crawford
David Farrar
Ronald Shiner
Cinematography Otto Heller
Music by Jack Beaver
Production
company
Distributed byWarner Bros. (UK)
Release date
  • 5 December 1943 (1943-12-05)(United Kingdom)
Running time
81 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget£48,145 [2]
Box office£52,583 [2]

The Night Invader is a 1943 British black-and-white war film directed by Herbert Mason and starring Ronald Shiner, Anne Crawford and David Farrar. [3] It was written by Roland Pertwee and Brock Williams based on the 1941 novel Rendezvous with Death by John Bentley, and produced by Max Milder for Warner Bros.–First National Productions Ltd. the British subsidiary of Warner Bros.

Contents

Plot

Dick Marlow, a British agent, has parachuted into the occupied Netherlands to retrieve vital documents. Whilst on the trail of the papers, he poses occasionally as an American journalist and a Gestapo officer. He meets and falls in love with a Dutch woman who professes solidarity with the British, but matters become complicated and dangerous when it transpires that the woman's brother is in possession of the documents Dick Marlow needs, and is far less kindly disposed towards the British than his sister.

Cast

Reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "David Farrar rather steals this fast-moving and amusing film from Anne Crawford, while Karl Jaffe is excellent as a bombastic but blundering German colonel even if he slightly burlesques it. The finish is rather incredible, but the swift dialogue almost masks its weakness. A special word should be given to small-part actor George Carney who is superb as a train conductor." [4]

Kine Weekly wrote: "The actual plot is somewhat stereotyped, but the director and principal players cunningly disarm criticism and give it pace and punch by successfully adopting tongue-in-the-cheek methods. Its exuberant sense of humour and its well-timed thrills and hair-raising aerial climax will get it over with the industrial masses and youngsters." [5]

Picture Show wrote: "Somewhat lurid and unconvincing is this spy melodrama ... there's plenty of action and narrow escapes from death before the hero does his stuff and returns triumphant. Briskly directed, heartily acted." [6]

Picturegoer wrote: "Conventional plot concerning the adventures of a young British secret agent whose work takes him to Holland and Paris. It has familiar undercover thrills of a popular order. It smacks of the old-time serial melodrama, but is well put over nonetheless. David Farrar is good in the lead, and Anne Crawford supplies glamour as the heroine." [7]

Availability

No print of The Night Invader is known to survive and the film is classed as "missing, believed lost". [8]

References

  1. ↑ "The Night Invader". Picturegoer (568): 8–9. 28 November 1942 – via ProQuest.
  2. 1 2 Steve Chibnall (2019) Hollywood-on-Thames: the British productions ofWarner Bros. – First National, 1931–1945, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 39:4, 687-724, DOI: 10.1080/01439685.2019.1615292 at p 714
  3. ↑ "The Night Invader". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 11 December 2025.
  4. ↑ "The Night Invader". The Monthly Film Bulletin . 10 (109): 99. 1 January 1943. ProQuest   1305820586.
  5. ↑ "The Night Invader". Kine Weekly . 319 (1): 27. 16 September 1943. ProQuest   2676989024.
  6. ↑ "The Night Invader". Picture Show . 48 (1225): 11. 4 December 1943. ProQuest   1879613725.
  7. ↑ "The Night Invader". Picturegoer . 12: 12. 4 November 1943. ProQuest   1771142411.
  8. ↑ "Missing Believed Lost - The Great British Film Search". www.britishpictures.com. Retrieved 11 December 2025.
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