Orders to Kill (1958) on Netflix
Gene Summers, an American airman who speaks French, is sent into occupied Paris to kill Marcel Lafitte. Lafitte, a lawyer, is suspected of betraying Resistance radio operators to the Nazis.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb7.1/10913 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Plot summary
Washington, 1944. Gene Summers, whose French is fluent, is chosen for a mission in Paris under German occupation: he is to assassinate Marcel Lafitte, a lawyer in the French Resistance who is suspected of betraying radio operators to the Germans. Before he leaves he goes home to Boston to see his mother, then crosses to England for training. Dropped into France, he reaches Paris, where the dressmaker Léonie serves as his Resistance contact; she gives him identity papers for later use, and is kept ignorant of the mission in case she is questioned. Summers studies Lafitte from a distance, then comes across him unexpectedly in a café.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Orders to Kill (1958)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- At the 1958 Cannes Film Festival, American juror and veteran director Charles Vidor found Orders to Kill offensive to the United States military, so the film failed in competition, even though others there thought it the best movie of the festival.
- Silent-era star Lillian Gish was cast as the hero's mother because director Anthony Asquith had known and loved her in 1920s Hollywood, as producer Tony Havelock-Allan recalled.
