This movie from the Second World War will be enjoyed by those who are willing to watch old movies for their historical value. This one may interest those who are particularly interested in seeing how old Hollywood delivered wartime propaganda and treated Canadian themes. The rest may find this movie difficult to sit through. It's simply too dated. I'm giving it as lower score for that reason.Raoul Walsh and the writers must have gone to some trouble to portray northern Manitoba in the 1940s realistically, but it is difficult to take a few of the scenes seriously (eg the downhill skiing). Those scenes are now laughable.The depiction of the Cree of northern Manitoba is disturbing, in hindsight. They deserved better from Hollywood. If you'd like to better understand the complex situation of the Cree people in wartime and the loyalty and fighting prowess of the Cree soldiers (albeit during the First World War), read "Three Day Road" by Joseph Boyden.

Way up north in the Canadian outback, a German submarine rises out of the icy waters. Of those who disembark, only one survives, the rest knocked off in an avalanche. For this Nazi (Helmut Dantine), his goal is to get to a secret Nazi disapatchery of military supplies which include weapons and a war plane. Of the Northwest Mounted Police, it is the German descended Errol Flynn who becomes the pawn in his plan to get more of his men (all being transported to a prisoner of war detention center) and get to the secret base. Flynn pretends to be a traitor, and as for the rest, well, more of the same from other war propaganda films.Except, this more of the same is an exciting snowbound trek across the Yukon territory, as far up north as humanly possible to travel. There are a few plot clichés which include Flynn's fiancée Julie Bishop conveniently used by the Nazis to keep Flynn in line, and poor Gene Lockhart, typecast once again as a fool, a supposed American businessman who is a traitor both sinister and cowardly, getting no sympathy.As for Dantine, there are a few moments where his character shows tinges of humanity, but when you've got Hitler in your brain, those moments are brief. Flynn leaves his tongue out of his cheek for most of this movie in playing this character, whose alliances are briefly in question. A corny final moment seems thrown in as an unnecessary Hollywood "In Like Flynn" joke. The excitement of the rest of the film, though, makes that eye-rolling moment forgivable.

I was a bit surprised by this film. Despite being a quality production from Warner Brothers with a top director and a top star, the film was seemingly written by chipmunks--and dumb ones at that. Perhaps the reason they filmed such a bad plot is because it was WWII and they wanted a good propaganda piece for the audiences--but still, it should have been a lot better. Instead of bolstering the war effort, this film probably just elicited a few laughs.Why did I dislike the script so much? Well, the biggest problem is how ludicrous the plot was. Sometimes you need to suspend disbelief to enjoy a film--here you need to turn off you brain completely! You are expected to believe that the Germans would send soldiers all the way to the most inhospitable wasteland of Canada. Then, you need to accept that they plan to bomb the St. Lawrence Seaway---and had planted planes in the wild years before the war in order to do this!! And, the Germans who concocted such a complicated plot had to be dumb enough to have this ridiculous plot foiled by a double-agent (Flynn). Now this is not the only obvious problem with the script. It also is, from time to time, a bit dull and could have either used a trimming or some more excitement along the journey. Much of it simply shows the group slogging through the snow in the sound stage--and a little of this goes a long way.It's really a shame about the script, as the acting was quite good. Even though Errol Flynn had little to do in most of the movie, as usual his performance appears effortless as he was a very good actor. Gene Lockhart plays a heartless and spineless guy very well. And, relatively unknown Helmut Dantine is fine as a cold and snarling Nazi. These actors simply deserved better and the main reason I still give a reasonably high score was their acting--and it must have been hard giving good performances when they knew the script was a turkey.

Considering this was a 1943 film, I was quite surprised and entertained by the story and great acting by many veteran actors. Errol Flynn,(Corporal Steve Wagner) was a Royal Canadian Mountie who found a man who was exhausted and found in deep snow. This man was Colonel Hugo Von Keller,(Helmut Dantine) who is a Nazi officer and also a pilot who was on a secret mission in Canada. These Nazi's entered the Hudson Bay area in a submarine from Germany and headed North Northwest across Canada through deep Arctic temperatures. Gene Lockhart,(Ernst) is a spy for the Nazi's and manages to contact Steve Wagner and use him as a guide under false pretensions. There is plenty of action and a very surprising ending. Enjoy