Where Parks Dare
When the advancing German army take his country, King Stephen (Jonathan Hale) finds himself being taken prisoner by General von Bodenbach (John Carradine). American Michael Lindley (Larry Parks) is in Switzerland at the time and is approached by an old friend who asks him to listen to the radio where upon he hears the King asking his people not to fight the Germans. As a distant relation to the King he can't believe for a minute he would do so and agrees to strap on a black parachute and enter the country by night to rescue the King from where ever he is being held. But with the local resistance unaware of his arrival they are initially not sure whether the is a German agent or not. Convincing the resistance of his intentions is not Michael's only problem as he needs to not only find out where the King is but whether or not it is him making those broadcasts.
You really have to love watching movies or have a passion for old WWII movies to watch "The Black Parachute" and it isn't because it is bad. Nope this low budget war movie from back in 1944 is so generic that it is a difficult movie to keep focused on. Of course I am saying this now many years after "The Black Parachute" was released but I can't see how its generic nature would have been any more gripping back in 1944 as it simply feels like the writers have cobbled together various ideas from other WWII movies.
So what you get is that basic WWII adventure where we have a mercenary, Michael Lindley, on a rescue mission. Typically he has dealings with a local group of resistance fighters and then he ends up masquerading as a German to try and gain access to the head quarters of the Germans. On top of that we even have a woman who might be a German agent. All of which leads to things not going to plan and a guns a blazing action finale. In fairness there are a couple of nice ideas in "The Black Parachute" but mostly this is a generic war movie which only goes through the motions.
What this all boils down to is that "The Black Parachute" might be of interest to those who are interested in old WWII movies and old cinema in general but for anyone else this ends up a low budget, generic war time adventure movie with doesn't do a good job of getting or keeping your attention.
