Freedom Radio (a.k.a. A Voice in the Night) is a 1941 British propaganda film directed by Anthony Asquith and starring Clive Brook, Diana Wynyard, Raymond Huntley and Derek Farr. It is set in Nazi Germany during the Second World War and concerns an underground German resistance group who run a radio station broadcasting against the totalitarian Third Reich.
It was shot at Shepperton Studios. The film's sets were designed by the art director Paul Sheriff.
Plot
The story begins in Vienna just before the beginning of the Second World War. Dr Roder is physician to some important members of the Nazi party but prefers being at his luxurious house with his wife, Irena, and servants. Irena's brother Otto returns from Italy and they throw a party with many interesting and high-ranking attendees. During the party the Gestapo call, requiring his immediate attendance.
At his club, the main servitor, Sebastian, announces the club is closing and they will not see him again. Some of Dr Roder's friends have already been taken away for 'questioning' and Dr Roder is horrified and afraid of the direction in which his country is going.
His wife Irena is an actress, and after her performance it is related that Adolf Hitler very much admired her performance. She is offered a post in Berlin as Reich Director of Popular Pageantry. At church the priest decries the deposition of a fellow priest, inciting an attack by a group of SS officers including Otto who glares at the shocked doctor. The priest is killed but the press release blames the congregation.
Hans Glaser is trying to get a radio sales licence and the doctor says he will try to help. He tells his fiancee Elly who runs a newspaper stall, despite various papers regularly being confiscated.
Frau Schmidt is pestered by her neighbour who wants to borrow lard. The neighbour eavesdrops and hears her listening to French broadcasts. The neighbour reports her to the SS who smash her radio and arrest her just as the granddaughter Elly arrives. An SS officer assaults the girl. She is interrogated, but after Irena learns what happened to her, she intervenes and demands that Elly's attacker be punished, and Elly cared for, and they are told that Elly will go to a "rest home".
Dr Roder and his wife start drifting apart especially when he says the Nazi party is like a cancer. She leaves him and goes to stay in Stuttgart. Things get worse, with beatings, interrogations and book burning.
The doctor asks Hans to build a secret radio. Hans first suspects a trick. The doctor explains he wants to create a "Freedom Station"... both knowing they face death if caught. They use a basement under a toy shop and smuggle parts in through toys brought for repair.
He creates a secret radio station transmitting on 26.9, from which he broadcasts condemnations of Hitler and prays for a "better" Germany to arise from the ashes of his ruined country. The unauthorised broadcast is intercepted and a public announcement made saying "do not listen to 26.9" accidentally promoting the station. They broadcast each evening at 10.30pm.
The birth of "Freedom Radio" sees the creation of an underground group of anti-Nazis who regard Karl as their leader.
Multiple people ring the doctor to wish him happy birthday... but it is not his birthday.
Captain Muller explains to his superiors how triangulation can be used to calculate where the signal is coming from. He blames Goebels for jamming the signal which then cannot be traced.
Otto visits Irena when the radio is on, they both think they recognise Dr Roder's voice. Otto is asked to join Muller's detection unit. Fenner starts doing more of the live broadcasts and the doctor's voice is put onto a gramophone record for broadcast.
His friend Rudolf has friends on each side. It is intimated to Rudolph in a coded message that Germany will invade Poland on the following Friday.
It is discovered that Hitler will be making a major broadcast from a stadium and Hans goes to rig up a bypass to allow their own message to be broadcast instead. Ironically Irena is in charge of organising the pageantry of the huge rally. She has a special seat with Rabenau. Hitler starts to speak then it jumps to Roder... he speaks for under a minute before the power is switched off. Hans escapes dressed as an SS officer.
They suspect Dr Roder and burst into his clinic. They find nothing. Meanwhile Hans gets home and finds Elly in his room; she looks broken, like an old woman. Unknown to Hans and the Roders, she had been sent not to a care home, but to a concentration camp.