Nine Lives () is a 1957 Norwegian film about Jan Baalsrud, a commando and member of the Norwegian resistance during World War II. Trained in Britain, in 1943, he participated in an operation to destroy a German air control tower. This mission was compromised when he and his fellow soldiers accidentally made contact with a civilian rather than a Resistance member, who betrayed them to the Nazis.
The film was directed by Arne Skouen and is based on the book We Die Alone (1955) by British author David Howarth.
In 1958, the film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film and was entered into the Cannes Film Festival. In 1991, Norwegian television audiences voted it the greatest Norwegian film ever made.
Plot
The morning after their blunder, the resistance fighters are attacked by a German vessel. The Norwegians' boat contains 8 tons of explosives intended to destroy the air control tower. The commandos explode their payload, and Baalsrud and some other survivors flee. They swim ashore in ice cold Arctic waters. Baalsrud is the only one to escape the Nazi roundup. 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, during which time he suffers 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 Norwegians who have access to the Norwegian underground. While hiding in their barn, he amputates most of his frostbitten toes with an ordinary knife, because gangrene has set in.
The fellow Norwegians manage to move Baalsrud close to the Swedish border, but are forced to leave him in a snow cave for roughly two weeks. They made a new plan to get him over the border, having him transported by a reindeer herder, who finally gets him across the frontier to safety.
Baalsrud recuperates in a Swedish hospital for seven months. He returns to England through South Africa, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and America before rejoining the fight.
Cast
Jack Fjeldstad - Jan Baalsrud
Henny Moan - Agnes
Alf Malland - Martin
Joachim Holst-Jensen - Bestefar (grandpa) Lydia Opøien - Jordmoren (midwife) Edvard Drabløs - Skolelæreren (schoolteacher) Sverre Hansen - Skomakeren (cobbler) Rolf Søder - Sigurd Eskeland Ottar Wicklund - Henrik Olav Nordrå - Konrad Alf Ramsøy - Ivar, kjelketrekker (pulled the sled) Jens Bolling - Alfred, kjelketrekker Per Bronken - Ole, kjelketrekker Grete Nordrå - Stenografen (stenographer) Lillebil Nordrum - Sykepleiersken ("Nurse") Wilfred Breistrand as a sled puller
See also
List of Norwegian submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film List of submissions to the 30th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film Nine lives (disambiguation) The 12th Man (2017)