Plot
British Captain Terence Stevenson (Robert Donat) accepts an assignment even more dangerous than his everyday wartime job of defusing unexploded bombs. Fluent in Romanian and German and having studied chemical engineering, he is parachuted into Romania to assume the identity of Captain Jan Tartu, a member of the fascist Iron Guard. He makes his way to Czechoslovakia to steal the formula of a new Nazi poison gas and sabotage the factory where it is being manufactured.
However, his contact is arrested before he can arrange for a job in the factory. Tartu is instead assigned work as a foreman at a munitions plant. Among the other occupants of the house in which he resides are his landlady Anna Palacek (Phyllis Morris), her daughter Paula (Glynis Johns), who works in the plant, German Inspector Otto Vogel (Walter Rilla), and lovely Maruschka Lanova (Valerie Hobson), who makes herself popular with the German occupiers, especially Vogel and the local commandant.
Tartu gains Paula's confidence by providing her with an alibi after she shoots a German officer. He asks her help to contact the Czech underground and is surprised to learn that Maruschka is one of them. She in turn contacts Dr. Novotny (Martin Miller), the leader of the local resistance group. Though Maruschka trusts Tartu, Novotny is more cautious.
When Paula is detected attempting to commit sabotage at the factory, she whispers to Tartu to denounce her to deflect suspicion away from him. She is then summarily shot. This, along with the death of Tartu's contact, causes the underground to believe that he is a Nazi agent; Maruschka plots to have a Nazi officer, who has a crush on her, to kill Tartu. Fortunately, Tartu is transferred to the gas plant without their help.
He goes to work for Dr. Willendorf (Percy Walsh), the head of the operation. However, he is dismayed to learn that the first shipment of gas is due to leave the factory the next night. Desperate, he pretends to get drunk in a bar and blurts out that he knows the names of Czech resistance members who will be arrested soon, then staggers out into the dark street. As he had hoped, he is abducted by the underground. With a great deal of effort, he finally convinces them they are on the same side. He manufactures small bombs that, in the right places, are enough to demolish the plant.
The next day, he goes to work. Though his cover is blown soon afterward, he manages to plant the bombs and escape from the heavily-guarded plant, which blows up as he drives off. Then, he, Maruschka, and a pilot steal a German bomber and fly away.
Read more about this topic: The Adventures Of Tartu
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“The plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular age, people, or country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account, as nobody’s previous information could afford the remotest glimmering of what would ever come of it.”
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