Robert J. Maxwell The top credits go to the two American stars. Gary Merrill is the colonel who organizes an espionage venture behind the German lines at the Rhine River. Richard Basehart is the lieutenant who leads the team, taking with him two converted German POWs -- the canny and untrustworthy Hans Christian Blech, and the innocent idealistic Oskar Werner.But the picture belongs to Oskar Werner. He's on screen most of the time and its his travails we track. He's given an assignment -- find out where a certain Panzer division is located -- and given a new identity, a corporal and a medic in the Luftwaffe with phony papers.He discovers the whereabouts of the Panzers but comes under suspicion for the slightest of reasons. Little by little, his fake identity is stripped away until he becomes a fugitive before finally joining the rest of the team in an attempt to reach the Allied lines on the other side of the Rhine. The experience is harrowing for Werner and for the viewer.But equally impressive is the tour of Germany's bare ruined choirs as the war's end approaches. There is a shortage of everything. The buildings are blackened skeletons. A theater has been turned into a vast crater filled with rubble.During his quest, Werner runs into various German "types". There are the usual fanatical Gestapo and SS troops, but only one of each. Then there is the long and beautiful face of Hildegard Knef, who is a prostitute through no weaknesses of her own and whose story is moving, partly due to the actress' skills. You may or may not recognize Klaus Kinski in his brief appearance. He looks about fourteen.But the man most impacted by this mission is Richard Basehart, as the team's leader. He's distant, contemptuous towards all Germans, but he expresses his distaste in subtle ways. He never gives a Big Speech about all the Krauts being the same. The expression "you and your kind" is never uttered.Blech may be on the team because he's a con man and thinks he's gotten a better deal by spying than by remaining in a POW camp, but Werner is an idealist. Actually his position is close to that of von Runstedt and Rommel. They've fought the good fight and lost. Now it's time to end the war. Werner is the most ungainly runner imaginable. When he hurries through the rubble his shoulders are hunched and his arms wave about like Fred Astaire on a binge. But he can be a superb actor. His face is perfect for the role -- handsome, babyish, innocent, pensive.The movie humanizes the Germans. It couldn't have been made much earlier than it was, 1951. Certain strictures were placed on the depiction of Germans during and immediately after the war. They couldn't be too good, although they could be thoroughly evil. In 1943, John Steinbeck's "The Moon Is Down" appeared on film and both Peter van Eyck, who played a fundamentally decent Nazi, and the author received boos from the public.In the same year as "Decision Before Dawn", a story of Erwin Rommel, James Mason, was released -- "The Desert Fox." Mason spoke perfect English and Rommel was painted as an idealistic soldier who only reluctantly joined in the attempt to assassinate Hitler. (Which he didn't do, in real life.) More boos from the critics. The world wasn't ready to forgive Germany yet, and the following year Mason again played Rommel in "The Desert Rats", but as a stereotype, with false bravado and an English mangled by the worst German accent you could conjure up. We still occasionally run into German villains in modern movies, although they're hard put to compete with the Russians and with swarthy terrorists.In some ways, "Decision Before Dawn" may be the best of the lot -- complex in the way that reality itself is complex. It's an adult movie and very suspenseful.

Robert Charles Don't know how anyone misses this or rates it less than a 7 even if you hate war,old, or even 'guy' films, whatever. Check the writer (OSS experience as German émigré, AND brilliant screenwriter), director, and uh, oh yeah..Best Picture nomination? Drama as realism, almost documentary. Filmed entirely in Europe in 1950/1. No postcards like this.Casting is strong and lack of facetime from big stars makes it all the more real. Cinematography effective, sets courtesy of 8th Air Force and Nazi disaster. True story with enough facts to make it hard to criticize, although a little hard to swallow the very end. Simple dialogue, washed out souls, the ugly and sad situation of German nation as war wound down is very painful, even if backdrop to underlying Allied victory story.Special shot -- 12minutes in catch 10 seconds of baby-(crazy-)faced Klaus Kinski as rejected 'traitor' POW. He was 24 and just starting in films, shortly after skipping out of hospital, from his first bout with "schizophrenia"

dusan-22 Nice war movie from the old Hollywood school. Pretty modern style of filming, if movie wasn't black and white the one could say that it was from the last decades. Just a fast talking acting style of one or two actors that is typical for the beginning of the Sound film era in Hollywood makes you aware on how this movie really old is. Clever camera, fast and engaging rhythm, tense as a thriller at the times. Pretty convincing acting, very good casting and fantastic war recreation for that time, city in ruins and AA guns look like real. Film is ruined by German characters speaking English language with German accents, making the good actors look like clowns and the whole film like some History Channel show. Also, definition of the main character in the film is somehow lost until the end itself since there is no interaction between separate stories of the characters during the whole film, we are losing two of three main heroes for the whole hour. Worth to mention that movie is pushing strong American propaganda stereotype established by its father Franc Capra: There is no "Prelude to war" hear, but the reason "Why we fought" and black and white distinguishing of good and bad made by the winners. Or should I say one of the winners, since this film as many others made in that era ignores by all means the others (especially Soviet Union - country which really military defeated Nazi Germany) on the very careful and clever way. 7 out of 10, recommended.

edwagreen This film was nominated for best picture in 1951 and along with "A Place in the Sun," should have received more careful attention from Academy voters. Their choice of "An American in Paris" as best picture left a bitter taste in the mouths of movie people."Decision Before Dawn" chronicles the U.S. army's attempt to recruit German soldiers to spy on their own countries. These recruits are tested at a prisoner of war camp.A very young Oskar Werner steals the show as one who is chosen. The picture becomes even more exciting as Werner eludes the German army as the gestapo is on to him. This film deals with those Germans who realized that the war was lost and what Germany had done, they want to redeem themselves even if it means that their countrymen would denounce them after the war. Then, there are those who would use this as an attempt to get back home and inform the army of the traitors among them.Werner gets terrific support from Gary Merrill and Richard Basehart, the latter a fantastically under-rated actor.