49th Parallel is a 1941 British war drama film; it was the third film made by the British writer-director team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It was released in the United States as The Invaders. Despite the title, no scene in the film is set at the 49th parallel, which forms much of the Canada–United States border. The only border scene is at Niagara Falls, which is located farther south.
Early in the Second World War, U-37, a German U-boat, makes its way to Canadian waters and participates in fictional anti-shipping activities similar to those that would later characterize the Battle of the St. Lawrence (which occurred in actuality some time after the film's release). The U-boat succeeds in evading RCN and RCAF patrols by moving north. A raiding party of six Nazi sailors are put ashore to obtain supplies, but no sooner do they land then the U-boat is sunk in Hudson Bay by RCAF bombers. The six attempt to evade capture by travelling across Canada to reach the neutral United States and return to Germany.
Led by Lieutenants Hirth (Eric Portman) and Kuhnecke (Raymond Lovell), the small band of sailors encounter and sometimes brutalise a wide range of people. The band steadily diminishes as one by one they are killed or captured. Initial victims of the Nazi sailors are the Eskimo Nick (Ley On), and a French-Canadian trapper (Laurence Olivier). When a floatplane is dispatched to investigate to reports of their arrival at a Hudsons Bay Company trading post, they open fire on the community gunning down the pilot and local Inuit onlookers. The Nazis steal the aircraft and take off to fly south but not before one of the sailors is shot and killed by an Inuit hunter.
The floatplane crashes in a lake in Manitoba, killing the Nazi submarine engineering officer. The Nazis encounter a nearby Hutterite farming community, believing them to be sympathetic to the German cause. Lieutenant Hirth's fanatical speech is rejected by Peter (Anton Walbrook), the community's leader, and even by one of their own, Vogel (Niall MacGinnis), who comes to the aid of Anna (Glynis Johns), a 16-year-old girl. Vogel, who would rather join the community and ply his trade of baker, is tried by Lieutenant Hirth and summarily executed for the greater crime of trying to break away from the Nazi group.
The dwindling band arrive in Winnipeg and sell equipment for food. Hearing that the police are watching the nearby American border, they decided to make their way to Vancouver and catch a steamship for neutral Japan. Knocking out an innocent motorist for his car, Hirth, Lohrmann and Kranz flee west. With all of Canada searching for them, and having killed eleven civilians along the way, Lohrmann is arrested by Canadian Mounties at a parade at Banff, Alberta. The two remaining Nazis try to walk across the Rockies. They are welcomed at a camp by a British writer named Phillip Armstrong-Scott (Leslie Howard) who takes them for lost tourists but they turn on him destroying his books and paintings before fleeing. The writer and the staff of his camp pursue them. Enraged by the Nazis' mockery and destruction of art, Armstrong-Scott challenges and captures Kranz in a cave.
The story comes to a head with a confrontation between Hirth, the sole remaining fugitive and absent-without-leave Canadian soldier Andy Brock (Raymond Massey) on an baggae and express car of a Canadian National Railway train near the American border. When Hirth learns that the train has crossed into the United States at Niagara Falls, he surrenders his gun to a customs official and demands to be taken to the German embassy in the US, that was still neutral.
Brock explains that Hirth is wanted in Canada for murder but while the US border guards are sympathetic to his plea, they cannot find any official reason to send him back to Canada. Brock then points out that Hirth is locked in the express freight compartment of the baggage car, but is not listed on the freight manifest. The US guards are happy to accept this pretext and send the car, along with Hirth and Brock, back to Canada as "improperly manifested cargo". The film ends with the train reversing to Canada and Brock about to pummel Hirth in the boxcar.
(Wikipedia)
Please take note that the audio AND the sheet music ARE NOT mine. Change the quality to a minimum of 480p if the video is blurry.
Original audio: [ Ссылка ]
(Performance by: National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Bernard Herrmann)
Original sheet music: [ Ссылка ]_(Vaughan_Williams,_Ralph)
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