Occupied France, 1940: Durand (Herbert Berghof) has betrayed a whole
Résistance cell to the Germans, and now they are shot dead one by one -
which tears out his heart, and yet he doesn't do it for the money ... The
Germans aren't ungrateful, so when Durand's work is done, they fly him out
to a neutral country. There he meets Polish Liza (Maria Riva), a traitor
just like him (or so she claims) - who ultimately lures him into a trap
and he's kidnapped and flown to London, where a rich "sponsor of
justice" and his 17 year old assistant both try to execute him but
can't after they hear Durand's story: his son fought on the side of the
Résistance, but he was the only one of his group who was captured and
executed ... so he swore to avenge his son by bringing his whole group to
justice - cruel German justice that is. When both his would-be
executioners fail to kill him though, Durand shoots himself dead ... One
of the episodes of Suspense that actually tries to tell a
profound story - tries and fails though. The main failure of the story is
that Durand's motivations are never fully comprehensible: He wants the
Germans to shoot his son's accomplices because the Germans shot his son?
Really? Second of all, there's a bloodlust in this story that's simply
despicable (even if it seems to be rooted in the American "an eye for
an eye"-understanding of justice): The whole story only builds up to
Durand's death, and to the question at whose hands he's going to die, his
motives for the crime he has commited might be explained but are never
properly explored (which would have added actual depth to the story). So
in the end, the whole complex of topics this story might have carried is
reduced to a mere game of crime and punishment - in other words, a wasted
opportunity.
|