Appointment with Venus (1951)

That was an excellent one.

Great Film overall

Did you people see the same film I saw?

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

A 1951 trifle about a team stealing a prize cow from under the noses of the Germans who have occupied one of the Channel Islands.There's no other animal in the world like it, we're told. And, further, it was recently impregnated by a prize bull, now demised. It's a symbol of national pride as much as anything else, the ultimate ungulate.So a team is organized to abduct the cow, named Venus, from its island and bring it back to the green fields of England. It's a diverse group, as these teams always are. Led by Major David Niven, they include wide-eyed Glynis Johns, rescued from a kitchen in Wales because she is a native of Amorel Island, and Noel Purcell, an Irish fisherman who is suddenly taken drunk from time to time, but who is able to navigate among the rocks, channels, and kills of the moral Amorel.There are moments of slight comedy, and some tension builds towards the end when the torpedo boat carrying the team and its prize are pursued by a Nazi E boat, but it's all pretty schematic. Kenneth More is an islander who now pays no attention to politics and glumly devotes himself to his painting. He opposes war and violence, but he's won over.There's nothing much to applaud in the film. We see a lot of rugged islanders talking. We see a civilized German commanding officer who doesn't want to see anyone get hurt. We see the team disguised as simple farmers or fishermen dashing about, sometimes tugging a cow behind them. We see Venus give birth and everyone's face glows with a sort of pleasure that strikes me as a little perverse. What's so hot about a new-born calf? In Samoa, nobody would even be allowed to WATCH the calving because it's considered dirty.At any rate, there's never any real doubt that Venus will be rescued from the Huns. It's not especially funny and it's not very dramatic. What's all the fuss?

This is quite a nice film but it could have been a lot better. The plot is mucked about too often for no apparent reason and Glynis Johns just isn't right as the Nicola. David Niven is believable as Major Valentine but it's not his best performance by a long way and Noel Purcell must have been cast just for his beard. He's supposed to be from the island but he plays the part very Dublin Irish. Patric Doonan is absolutely spot on as Forbes though giving one of his best performances and Martin Boddey is a wonderfully brutal Vogel. Kenneth More is good as the pacifist Lionel but (Spoiler) at the end of the film he gets on the boat and sails to England with the others which is totally out of character and, for me, ruins the end of the movie. In the book he specifically says that he can't go to England because the Germans will want to take retribution and he stays behind to take the blame so the island will be spared and then Captain Weiss, who is quite a sympathetic character, shoots him to save him falling into the hands of the torturers from the Gestapo.

Who in their right minds would mount a commando raid to rescue a cow ?Only the Brits. Venus was in fact a Gurnsey Cow. A champion milk producer.And the envy of Hitler, who wanted to breed her capabilities into the Teutonic herds that he had proclaimed to be the world's best.Thus for reasons of morale the Brits mounted a commando operation to snatch Venus right from under the noses of the German occupiers of her island home. A wonderful movie Starring David Niven and Glynis Johns,recreated this exciting story of the successful operation. I was lucky enough to have seen the movie in a theatre when it first came out,at the tender age of ten .I loved it then and I loved it on late night TV 35 years later. I wish it would play again. I'd make a point of staying up to tape it. A splendid paean of praise for the indomitable Human Spirit. If it comes your way take time to enjoy.

"Appointment with Venus" author Jerrard Tickell, who also wrote "Odette", wrote that the germ of the idea for his novel, and delightful movie, came ten years or more in the past when he had a conversation with a Colonel "Duke" Wright in the British War Office. In 1940, Wright was O.C. at Guernsey and, with the fall of France, had the dangerous task of evacuating the garrison from the Channel Islands. After a nightmare journey, the exhausted, unshaven but triumphant Wright reported to the War Office at three in the morning that not a man had been lost. The junior officer who greeted him remarked what a pity it was that the Colonel had failed to bring any pedigreed cows with him. And added, "I suppose you couldn't go back and collect some." Tickell wrote that Colonel Wright's reply was as pungent as it was unprintable.