On the Double (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
On the Double (film)
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On the Double
1961 movie poster
Directed by
Melville Shavelson
Produced by
Jack Rose
Written by
Melville Shavelson
Jack Rose
Starring
Danny Kaye
Dana Wynter
Wilfrid Hyde-White
Margaret Rutherford
Diana Dors
Music by
Leith Stevens
Cinematography
Harry Stradling
Geoffrey Unsworth
Editing by
Frank Bracht
Distributed by
Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)
May 19, 1961
Running time
92 min
Country
USA
Language
English
On The Double is a 1961 film, directed by Melville Shavelson, who also wrote the screenplay with Jack Rose. It stars Danny Kaye who plays, as in many of his films, two roles ¡ª in this case, an American soldier and a British General.
[edit] Plot
The year is 1944. The place is an Allied army camp in southeast England, full of soldiers waiting for the D-day invasion.
Enter Ernie Williams, a most reluctant American soldier. A hypochondriac and a coward, Ernie does have one talent; he's a superb mimic. One night in the mess, he is persuaded to impersonate the commander, General Sir Lawrence MacKenzie Smith. Using this persona, he attempts to go AWOL, but does not get further than the gate.
With a court-martial staring him in the face for impersonating an officer, Ernie is in big trouble. But Colonel Somerset (Wilfrid Hyde-White) of Military Intelligence recruits Ernie for "Operation Dead Pigeon". He is to impersonate the General (to whom he has a striking resemblance) for real, in order to flush out a suspected plot to kill the General, and unmask several officers known to be German agents.
Ernie is unable to fool the General's wife, Lady Margaret (Dana Wynter), but he is able to deceive the officers at a regimental party. On her advice, and to further the conceit, he appears to get drunk and has a fight with his wife. His hard-drinking sister, Lady Vivian (Margaret Rutherford) is highly suspicious, but is too drunk to take it further.
The General also has a mistress, Sergeant Stanhope (played by blonde bombshell Diana Dors), but Ernie finds out too late that she is a "plant" - a German agent. With her connivance, he is kidnapped and taken to Berlin. There, he manages to confuse the German interrogators, who want information about the projected Normandy landings, by talking arrant nonsense about non-existent operations and places. In the resultant confusion, he manages to escape and is chased through the streets of Berlin at night.
Ernie takes on several comic disguises to throw off his pursuers. Then he hides in a nightclub, but is forced to perform a cabaret act as Fraulein Lilli (copied from Lola-Lola in The Blue Angel). Finally, disguised as a pilot, he boards a German bomber and manages to parachute out over England. Captured and about to be shot as a spy, he's rescued at the last moment by Somerset.
By the end of the movie, Ernie and Margaret are in love (the real General having died in battle).
[edit] Cast
Danny Kaye as Private First Class Ernie Williams
Dana Wynter as Lady Margaret MacKenzie-Smith
Wilfrid Hyde-White as Colonel Somerset
Margaret Rutherford as Lady Vivian
Diana Dors as Sergeant Bridget Stanhope
Allan Cuthbertson as Captain Patterson
Jesse White as Corporal Joseph Praeger
Gregory Walcott as Colonel Rock Houston
Terence De Marney as Sergeant Colin Twickenham
Rex Evans as General Carleton Brown Wiffingham
Rudolph Anders as Oberkommandant
Edgar Barrier as Blankmeister
Ben Astar as General Zlinkov
[edit] External links
On the Double at the TCM Movie Database
On the Double at the Internet Movie Database
On the Double at AllRovi
v ¡¤ d ¡¤ eFilms directed by Melville Shavelson
1950s
The Seven Little Foys (1955) ¡¤ Beau James (1957) ¡¤ Houseboat (1958) ¡¤ The Five Pennies (1959)
1960s
It Started in Naples (1960) ¡¤ On the Double (1961) ¡¤ The Pigeon That Took Rome (1962) ¡¤ A New Kind of Love (1963) ¡¤ Cast a Giant Shadow (1966) ¡¤ Yours, Mine and Ours (1968)
1970s
The War Between Men and Women (1972) ¡¤ Mixed Company (1974) ¡¤ The Great Houdini (1976)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=On_the_Double_(film)&oldid=444070741"
Categories:
1960s comedy films
World War II films
1961 films
American films
English-language films
Paramount Pictures films
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This page was last modified on 10 August 2011 at 14:51.
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