Inclubabu Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Freaktana A Major Disappointment

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Mehdi Hoffman There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

ksf-2 Bomb expert Stevenson diffuses bombs during WW II. Robert Donat had gotten into film when talkies began, and won the oscar for "Goodbye Mr. Chips". In the story, he must take on the persona of Jan Tartu, mercenary. The script and the acting is pretty good.... but the sound is just terrible. Its the British branch of MGM, and it sounds like they placed the microphone miles away from the actors. nazis. spies. espionage. drama. good story. good stuff. Co-stars Glynis Johns and Valerie Hobson. Directed by Harold Bucquet, who died just a couple years after making this. Bucquet himself had served in WW I, so he knew what he was filming for this one. Bucquet had also directed a slew of the Doctor Kildare films. It's quite good, worth watching, if you can catch it.

jt_3d The Adventures of Tartu aka Sabotage Agent is a cut above the mass produced war movies of the 40s. The acting is very good. The sets are fantastic. Special effects are very good. And the story is pretty good even if it is just one of many, many 'go behind enemy lines to destroy X' stories. The script is very well written.Our story starts with Cpt. Stevenson being called to defuse a bomb in a hospital, which of course he succeeds in doing. Immediately after he is called to head off to Czechoslovakia on a secret mission because he grew up in Romania and speaks the language like a native, as well as speaking German. Soon enough he's off to try to contact the Czech underground, disguised as one Jan Tartu, a now deceased Romanian Iron Guard member. But before he can make contact his link to the underground is arrested and he has to try to make contact on his own.Stevenson becomes a Nazi official and keeps trying to make contact with the underground so he can get help to complete his mission before the deadline. Which leads to my favorite scene of the movie. After a great performance in a pub, Tartu/Stevenson is captured by a group of men who have to find out who he is. It's a cool scene, well conceived though I was able to figure out what was going on before it was revealed so it may have went on a bit too long.Naturally Stevenson is able to complete his mission and escape by way of a rather implausible shootout in which he never misses and the Nazis can't hit the floor with their hat. Nevetheless, this movie is somewhat better than the rest of the period, thanks mostly to Donat's somewhat comical portrayal of a Romanian Nazi puppet and his great acting. As well as the excellent sets and effects. I'd give it 8 stars but since this plot has been done oh so many times I only gave it 7/10.And by the way, Tartu only says Heil Hitler 15 times, though it seems like more because nine of them are within one 10 minute section.

blanche-2 A good-sized budget, wonderful stars, a good script and excellent direction by Harold Bucquet make for a top-notch British film, "Sabotage Agent," made in 1943 and starring Robert Donat, Valerie Hobson, and Glynis Johns. Donat plays a British soldier sent to destroy a poison gas the Nazis are making in Czechoslovakia. There, posing as an Iron Guard member, Jan Tartu, he draws attention to himself as a loud dresser and a ladies' man while trying to infiltrate the underground.The severely asthmatic Donat goes all out in this one, playing his Tartu character to the hilt, preening and raising his arm as he says "Heil Hitler" every other minute, it seems. He definitely mines the humor in the role. His costar is the beautiful and elegant Valerie Hobson, who rooms in the same house as Tartu. Her family has lost everything and now she consorts with Nazi generals, hoping to feather her nest. Glynis Johns plays a young girl who lives with her mother in the conscripted house, but she also works in the factory where "Tartu" is assigned as a guard. When she is caught at sabotage, his work is threatened.The film uses newsreel footage of London being bombed, and the laboratory set is amazing, as is the photography throughout the film. The shot of silhouetted soldiers against the skies in the beginning is beautiful. A very exciting and well-acted film, highly recommended.

Robert J. Maxwell "The Adventures of Tartu." Sounds like a children's movie, doesn't it? Maybe about an orphan elephant or a unicorn. But it's more serious than that. Robert Donat is a British chemist sent into Rumania, through Germany, into Czechoslovakia to sabotage a huge industrial plant where the Nazis are manufacturing vast amounts of poison gas. Since he is fluent in Rumanian and German, he is able to impersonate a real Rumanian "Iron Guard" officer named Jan Tartu. In Pilsen, Czechoslovakia, whence "Pilsener" beer, he lodges with a patriotic Czech family, along with Valerie Hobson, the soul of elegance. The youngster in the family, a factory worker, is the teen-aged Glynis Johns, she of the wide brow and slanted eyelids.Donat is given one of those black Nazi uniforms with the tight boots and wide riding breeches that the movies required of the Nazis at that time, and he is appointed supervisor of the workers at the plant. He needs the help of the Czech underground but he doesn't know how to get in touch with them. Can he trust Valerie Hobson, who seems like a closet patriot under all that arrogance? The Gestapo keep nosing around though, so he must be ever vigilant.Identities get mixed up. Mistakes are made. Glynis Johns is caught sabotaging some of the shells being manufactured in the plant and is executed. But Donat succeeds in his mission, blows the plant to smithereens, and makes a suspenseful escape with Hobson and a few other patriots in a Junkers 88.For such a complicated yet slight tale, the story generates a good deal of suspense. And it's an appealing piece of work, due in large measure to Donat's performance as the ersatz Iron Guard officer. He overplays the womanizing trait of the character but that's a problem with the script and the direction, not Donat's performance. He's charming in the role and seems a likable kind of guy. The rest of the cast consists of seasoned players and provides good support.The story seems a little trite now. There were so many like it during the war. Errol Flynn's "Desperate Journey" was a lot more fun, and Fritz Lang's "Hangmen Also Die" did a better job of capturing the ethos of occupied Czechoslovakia. Still, this is not a bad example of the genre.It's too bad that Czechoslovakia has been split into the Czech Republic and that other independent nation whose name I can never remember. It makes one of the London Times' crossword puzzle entries obsolete. Quick -- name a major seaport in the middle of Czechoslovakia.Oslo. CzechOSLOvakia. Get it? What can you do with a name like The Czech Republic? "Name a British saloon near the end of The Czech Republic"? That's ridiculous.