Déjà vu set in quickly for me during The Heroes of Telemark (1965) — caused, no doubt, by memories of the more recent Norwegian limited series The Heavy Water War, which tells the same, based-on-true-events story. Given the filmmaking era, there’s definitely a background radiation of Hollywood decision-making in this one’s script, but it’s a half-decent war epic for its type.
It’s 1942, and the Nazis have occupied Norway, where they have accelerated the production of deuteurium oxide, a key component for the development of the hydrogen bomb. Knut Stroud (Richard Harris), a Norwegian resistance fighter, smuggles this intelligence to “playboy scientist” Rolf Pedersen (Kirk Douglas) for analysis. Not a particularly political man, Pedersen is nonetheless alarmed to learn that the Germans may be ahead of the west in their pursuit of atomic weaponry, so he and Stroud escape to England. There’s nothing else for it: the plant where the heavy water is being made must be destroyed. But since an aerial bombardment would result in horrific collateral damage, Pederson and Stroud are sent back to Norway to lead a daring commando raid on the installation.
Like The Heavy Water War, The Heroes of Telemark is hamstrung by the actual events that inspired it — which gives it a linear, predictable shape. It also doesn’t have much character in its characters: Douglas basically plays a Hollywood version of a scientist, with Harris as his firebrand foil, and Ulla Jacobsson inserted as his ex-wife Anna — an awkward attempt to inject romance into the proceedings. But the outdoor cinematography, much of it shot on location, is gorgeous, lending a fair amount of locational verisimilitude — and all with the rich, widescreen aesthetic common to other war epics of that era (The Counterfeit Traitor and The Great Escape leap to mind). The operational setpieces aren’t exactly exciting, but the visual storytelling vibe is confident and it’s all attractively shot. Such consequential historical events perhaps deserve better justice, but overall it’s a decent weekend diversion for the right viewer.
