"The Man Who Never Was" is a wonderfully suspenseful, well-done World War II drama starring Clifton Webb, Gloria Grahame, and Stephen Boyd. Superbly directed by Ronald Neame, the film is based on a true story - the planting of a dead body washed onto the Greek shore, which carries papers which will redirect the Axis away from an invasion of Italy planned by the Allies. In order to carry out this hoax, the Allies need the body of a man who died of pneumonia, which will mimic a drowning and fool the Nazis. The scene where such a man is located and Clifton Webb talks to the father is one of the most touching of the film, as is the poignant ending.

For all the accolades about his acting, it still seems that Clifton Webb is under-appreciated today - he goes from a vicious, fey gossip in "The Razor's Edge" to a difficult husband in "Titanic" to a strong, decisive, distinguished member of British Intelligence in this movie flawlessly. He is perfect as Montague. Stephen Boyd is excellent as an Irishman working undercover for the Nazis who appears in London to verify the existence of the dead soldier, who is given a fake identity. Gloria Grahame plays a woman who unexpectedly falls in love and winds up as part of the plot. She turns in a heartbreaking performance. The rest of the cast is uniformly good.

The movie's excitement comes not from action but from the tension of the situation. It's filmed in beautiful color. An excellent movie.

This film is an example that occasionally truth can be stranger than fiction. Ewen Montague, an officer in the British military intelligence in World War II, was aware that unless something was done to reduce the defenses that the German and their Italian allies set up in Sicily the Allied assault on the island (which we would observe close up in the movie PATTON) would be a bloody fiasco that might set back the Allied war effort in Europe. The key to it would be to convince the Germans that if an attack was being planned it was being planned for another part of the European continent. Montague was sharp enough to formulate a daring scheme - and this film shows that formulation, the care and planning needed to pull it off, and how it succeeded in fooling the Nazis.

Montague's scheme is to deposit the corpse of an R.A.F. officer off the coast of Spain, still attached to a briefcase full of "invasion plan" documents - except the plans are not for the area of Italy or Sicily but for France. He reasons that the Fascist Franco regime in Spain will be very willing to allow the Nazis to read the secret papers (or copies of them). The trick is to find a corpse that will look like it died violently in battle and can fool the enemy, and that enough "details" regarding the "dead officer" can be verified by Nazi agents in Britain to make the Germans believe the corpse is genuine and not a plant.

So we watch Clifton Webb as Montague (in a rare straight dramatic part - well acted by the way) consult with specialists, including Andre Morell as the famous British Home Office pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury*. A good corpse is selected, and the right amount of proper personal items put into his military tunic and overcoat (including even a restaurant bill for the previous night before his death). When all is ready, the corpse is dumped off the coast of Spain by submarine. And then Montague and British Intelligence sit back and watch what happens, crossing their fingers that the scheme works.

Stephen Boyd (three years from his performance as Messala in BEN HUR) plays an Irishman who is spying for the Nazis, and who eventually discovers that the "corpse" is the genuine article. The result is that the Nazis weakened their defenses in Sicily sufficiently to allow the Allies to show up and (despite the Patton-Montgomery rivalry) retake the island in the first major defeat the Germans had of European conquered territory. A fascinating story well told - and as I said, true despite being so improbable.

*Sir Bernard's career as the leading British Criminal trial pathologist (from the Crippen Case in 1910 to the De Antiquis Case in 1947) was never given a movie treatment. Occasionally he is mentioned, as in UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS in one episode when Edward (Christopher Beeney) is reading a newspaper in 1925 about the "Crowsborough" Murder - the trial of Norman Thorne - and feels that "Sir Bernard will see it through!" Actually, that was one of Spilsbury's most controversial cases. He does deserve a Masterpiece Theater series about his life, which ended in 1947 with his tragic suicide.

THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS is an exemplary and atypical British WW2 film that brims with suspense and insight. It's also unlike any other war movie you'll see; the film is about spies and spying, but the plot itself - the efforts to convince the Nazis of the existence of the titular figure - is thoroughly unusual and thoroughly compelling. It best reminded me of ALBERT, R.N., a film with a similarly clever premise. Like ALBERT, R.N., it's also based on a larger-than-life true story. The film has a strong ensemble cast, all of whom give very convincing performances, particularly Stephen Boyd and Gloria Grahame in the latter part of the production. Few films get me on the edge of my seat these days, but THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS was one of them.