Nine Lives (1957 film)

Nine Lives (Norwegian: Ni Liv) is a 1957 Norwegian film about Jan Baalsrud, who was a member of the Norwegian resistance during World War II. In 1943, he participated in an operation to destroy a German air control tower. This mission was compromised when he and his fellow soldiers, seeking a trusted resistance contact, accidentally made contact with a civilian who betrayed them to the Nazis.

Ni Liv
Norwegian classics DVD cover
Directed byArne Skouen
Produced byArne Skouen
Written byArne Skouen
StarringJack Fjeldstad
Henny Moan
Alf Malland
Joachim Holst-Jensen
Rolf Søder
Distributed byLouis de Rochemont Associates
Release date
  • 11 November 1957 (1957-11-11)
Running time
96 minutes
CountryNorway
LanguageNorwegian

The film was directed by Arne Skouen and is based on the book We Die Alone by David Howarth.[1]

In 1958, the film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film[2] and was entered into the Cannes Film Festival.[3] In 1991, Norwegian television audiences voted it the greatest Norwegian film ever made.

Plot

The morning after their blunder, the resistance fighters' boat – containing 8 tons of explosives intended to destroy the air control tower – is attacked by a German vessel. The Norwegians destroy their boat by exploding their payload, and Baalsrud and some other surviving soldiers flee.

They swim ashore in ice cold Arctic waters, and Baalsrud is the only one to escape the Nazi onslaught. Soaking wet and missing one shoe, he escapes up a ravine, and shoots and kills a Gestapo officer.

Baalsrud evades capture for roughly two months, suffering from frostbite and snow blindness. He fails in his bid to reach the border of neutral Sweden and throws himself on the mercy of some Norwegian citizens who happen to have access to the Norwegian underground. While hiding in their barn, he amputates many of his own frostbitten toes with an ordinary knife.

These citizens manage to move Baalsrud close to the Swedish border, but are forced to leave him in a snow cave for roughly two weeks before they return and deliver him to a reindeer herder, who finally takes him over the frontier to safety.

Baalsrud recuperates in a Swedish hospital for seven months, then returns to England through South Africa, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and America before rejoining the fight.[4]

Cast

See also

References
  1. Howarth, David (1955). We Die Alone: A WWII Epic of Escape and Endurance. Collins. ISBN 978-1-59921-063-6. Republished 2007 by the Lyons Press.
  2. "The 30th Academy Awards (1958) Nominees and Winners". Oscars.org. Retrieved 2011-10-25.
  3. "Festival de Cannes: Nine Lives". Festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-02-10.
  4. "Eventyret om Oppegård (Norwegian)". Oppegardeventyret.homestead.com. 2001. Retrieved 2006-07-10.
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