Nine Lives

Nine Lives is a 1957 Norwegian film about Jan Baalsrud, a commando and member of the Norwegian resistance during World War II. Trained in Britain, in 1943, he participated in an operation to destroy a German air control tower. This mission was compromised when he and his fellow soldiers accidentally made contact with a civilian rather than a Resistance member, who betrayed them to the Nazis. The film was directed by Arne Skouen and is based on the book We Die Alone (1955) by British author David Howarth. In 1958, the film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film and was entered into the Cannes Film Festival. In 1991, Norwegian television audiences voted it the greatest Norwegian film ever made. Plot The morning after their blunder, the resistance fighters are attacked by a German vessel. The Norwegians' boat contains 8 tons of explosives intended to destroy the air control tower. The commandos explode their payload, and Baalsrud and some other survivors flee. They swim ashore in ice cold Arctic waters. Baalsrud is the only one to escape the Nazi roundup. Soaking wet and missing one shoe, he escapes up a ravine, and shoots and kills a Gestapo officer.