This was a good WWII propaganda film, but it has an awful lot of deficiencies along with all its good plot elements. First, let's talk about the good. The film has a very good cast. All the Germans who are running across the width and breadth of Canada are well-written and the acting is excellent. Also, there are bit performances by some exceptional actors you just wouldn't expect in small parts--they were or would be stars in their own right or already were. Laurence Olivier did a surprisingly good job playing a French-Canadian outdoorsman--not the sort of role you'd expect for the usually delicate actor. Then one of my favorite international actors, Anton Walbrook has a small part as a leader of a religious commune. At this commune, Glynis Johns plays a radiant young lady. Later, Leslie Howard and Raymond Massey (both well-established stars in 1941) appear in small but meaty parts as well. These actors and the dialog are all excellent. In particular, I enjoyed the ending--it was pretty funny and entertaining.

Now as for the bad, the whole plot idea is pretty stupid if you think about it. A sub drops off six guys in the middle of nowhere in the frozen northeast portion of Canada to attack a worthless target. I really can't understand why this target was chosen--maybe they wanted to steal all the whale blubber and beaver pelts. Then, after making this attack (and losing a submarine in the process--wow, that's an even exchange, huh?),the six remaining Nazis trek all the way to the West coast of Canada and then back east to Niagra Falls. This trip is thousands of miles and much of it is through frozen wasteland with few supplies but they manage just fine!!! This is all just a contrived idea in order to take the audience on a travelogue to learn that ALL the good people of Canada are solidly anti-Nazi! After all, the premise just doesn't make any common sense. On top of this, the film just seemed to go on and on. I really think having the Nazis confine themselves to just a few 100,000 square miles and fewer interactions with the locals would have made this a better film. Instead, they jaunt about the second largest country in the world (by size, not population) and it all seems so easy!! The trip SHOULD have been more akin to Napoleon's trip to Moscow and back!!!

A German U-Boat is doing its thing in the North Atlantic when it runs out of food supplies. The captain tries what admittedly is an audacious maneuver. He takes his ship into Hudson's Bay, figuring the population there is nothing but Inuit. He sends a landing party to forage for food. Then the submarine is spotted and sunk with bombs dropped by the Royal Canadian Air Force.

That strands the landing party and they're forced to try and make their way south to the then neutral USA. The film is a series of the various encounters the crew has with the free people of Canada.

Except for one of them, they are a thick headed lot, brains filled with Nazi propaganda. The most interesting encounter is with a group of Hutterites who are in fact German in origin. Comes as quite a culture shock for Eric Portman and his fellow German sailors. Anton Walbrook gives a very stirring speech here about the fact that this group left Europe a century ago to get away from people like the Nazis. One of the crew Niall McGinniss is a baker by trade in civilian life and would just as soon sit out the war with this crowd. Unfortunately his countrymen won't let him.

Laurence Olivier has a strong performance as a French Canadien trapper the group first encounters as they break into a trading post for food and supplies. It's a story put in there because during World War I the French Canadians were quite vociferously vocal in their opposition to the draft. Why I've never figured out because Canada was fighting on the side of France. Olivier has no interest whatever in the politics of Europe, but he finds out too late what kind of people he's now dealing with.

One of the episodes is a bit silly. The urbane and cultured Leslie Howard owns a bit of land and lives in an Indian wigwam with a Picasso, a Matisse, and a few writers that the Nazis find objectionable. Before stealing from him, they trash his place.

I don't know about you, but I find the whole thing too much. It's as if Leslie Howard just dusted off his Alan Squier portrayal from The Petrified Forest and had him come into some bucks. I mean every wigwam should have a Picasso.

The last sequence is a good one as an AWOL Canadian soldier played by Raymond Massey encounters the last remaining Nazi and deals with him appropriately. Raymond Massey comes from a prominent Canadian family, his brother was at one time Governor-General of Canada. I'm sure this was a film he wanted desperately to be in and he gives a good account of himself here.

Except for the Leslie Howard portion. 49th Parallel holds up very well even for today's audience.

49TH PARALLEL is a thematic war movie by the Powell & Pressburger team. It follows the misadventures of a bunch of Germans who find themselves stranded in Canada and must go undercover in order to reach the American border; as a neutral country, America will provide them a place of safety. Along the way, the Germans meet up with various characters and conflicting attitudes toward the war are subsequently explored throughout. 49TH PARALLEL is a well acted movie and as a propaganda piece it's less gung-ho than usual, taking time to explore the depth of the situation and raising some interesting questions at the same time.