The Informer

Il Cristo proibito / The Forbidden Christ - by Curzio Malaparte (1951)

Back in his village, former war prisoner Bruno Baldi is dead set on avenging his brother who has been shot by a German firing squad after being given away by a villager. But nobody wants to give him the name of the culprit. At long last, Antonio, a joiner, reveals the informer but this comes at a cost.

Hogan's Heroes is an American television sitcom set in a German prisoner of war (POW) camp during World War II. Colonel Hogan leads a ragtag band of POW's caught behind German lines in this popular television comedy. The bumbling Germans give Hogan and his crew plenty of opportunities to sabotage their war efforts. Colonel Klink is more concerned with having everything run smoothly and avoiding any trouble with his superiors (especially anything that might result in his being reassigned and sent to the front) than with being tough on Hogan and his fellow prisoners.

The first feature film directed by Jean-Luc Godard and one of the seminal films of the French New Wave, Breathless is story of the love between Michel Poiccard, a small-time hood wanted for killing a cop, and Patricia Franchini, an American who sells the International Herald Tribune along the boulevards of Paris. Their relationship develops as Michel hides out from a dragnet. Breathless uses the famous techniques of the French New Wave: location shooting, improvised dialogue, and a loose narrative form. In addition Godard uses his characteristic jump cuts, deliberate "mismatches" between shots, and references to the history of cinema, art, and music. Much of the film's vigor comes from collisions between popular and high culture: Godard shows us pinups and portraits of women by Picasso and Renoir, and the soundtrack includes both Mozart's clarinet concerto and snippets of French pop radio.

In 1993, the IRA member Collette is arrested in the London tube after leaving a bomb in the facility. MI-5 Agent Mac offers a deal to Collette to become an informer. She accepts the agreement to protect her son and in return Mac offers a new identity to her after a period working for the MI-5. Soon Mac learns that his superior Kate Fletcher is using Collette to protect her mole inside the Irish organization. Mac tries to find the identity of the informer and protect Collette.

In 1993, the IRA member Collette is arrested in the London tube after leaving a bomb in the facility. MI-5 Agent Mac offers a deal to Collette to become an informer. She accepts the agreement to protect her son and in return Mac offers a new identity to her after a period working for the MI-5. Soon Mac learns that his superior Kate Fletcher is using Collette to protect her mole inside the Irish organization. Mac tries to find the identity of the informer and protect Collette.

Adrian Messenger (John Merivale) asks his friend, British colonel Anthony Gethryn (George C. Scott), to check on the whereabouts of the eleven men named on a written list. Not long afterward, the plane on which Messenger is travelling is deliberately blown up. The mystery killer slipped the bomb on the plane while disguised as a priest, and we soon learn that the killer adopts a different guise for each of his subsequent murders. As Gethryn tracks down the men on Messenger's list, he discovers that all had been POWs in the same Burmese stockade during World War II, and he deduces that the murderer, who is methodically decimating those on the list, had been a traitor and informer. Gethryn traces the killer to the British estate of The Marquis of Gleneyre (Clive Brook), where his visit coincides with the return of "prodigal" American relative George Brougham (Kirk Douglas).