"La Ruse": the extraordinary story of a British secret service operation

Europe1 .fr 10 a.m., April 27, 2022

1943. The Allies are determined to break Hitler's hold on occupied Europe and plan a landing in Sicily.

But they find themselves faced with an inextricable challenge as they must protect the troops against an almost certain massacre.

Two brilliant British intelligence officers, Ewen Montagu (Colin Firth) and Charles Cholmondeley (Matthew Macfadyen) are tasked with developing the most unlikely – and ingenious – wartime propaganda that builds on the existence of the most unexpected of secret agents. : a dead body !

>>> An unknown event of the Second World War

"La Ruse", the captivating new film by John Madden (to whom we owe, among others, "Shakespeare in Love" which won the Oscar for best film in 1999), therefore tells a true story which goes far beyond the fiction.

This true event was a crucial turning point in the course of the Second World War.

The Allies devised a stunning scheme to trick the Nazis into thinking they would land in Greece and not Sicily.

They dreamed up a ruse that defies belief and which resulted in this film written by Michelle Ashford and starring a prestigious cast: Colin Firth, Matthew Macfadyen, Kelly Macdonald, Penelope Wilton and Johnny Flynn.

But as the screenwriter points out, "It's the plot that's the real star of the film!".

Ben Macintyre, author of the bestseller on which the film is based, talks about the details of the totally insane scheme devised by the British.

"For the English, the plan was to unearth a corpse and give it a false identity by passing it off as someone else. Then it was to dress it in military uniform and act as if the man was a dispatch rider who sank in the Mediterranean when his plane was shot down".

The instigators wanted to transport the corpse to the Spanish coast – a neutral country – certain that it would be fished out on the spot by Nazi spies.

The latter would then relay the – false – information found on the corpse directly to Adolf Hitler in Berlin.

The author of the book continues:

The English intended to dress up the corpse with a briefcase containing false documents seeming to indicate that all the Allied troops were preparing to land in Europe via Greece and not Italy.

So it was a plan to mislead the Nazis."

>>> A scheme devised by Ian Fleming, the future author of James Bond!

The scheme, codenamed Operation Mincemeat, has its roots in literature.

It was indeed designed by … Ian Fleming (played in the film by Johnny Flynn) who, of course, later became the author of the famous James Bond saga.

Ben McIntyre adds: "The plan came from fiction and, more specifically, from a novel by a certain Basil Thompson. No one reads Thompson these days. But Ian Fleming happened to know him. He was an assistant to Admiral Godfrey, head of naval intelligence during the war, who inspired M in the James Bond novels Fleming suggested Thompson's idea to Godfrey, and so the deception was almost entirely born out of a novel !".

The film's producer Emile Sherman insists on the decisive role played by Ian Fleming in this story: "Fleming had a decisive role in the whole Operation Mincemeat affair. He is our narrator, but he is also the one who, in the reality, created the 'Trout Memo': it was in this memo that the idea of ​​deceiving Hitler by using a corpse with identity papers appeared, which was then exploited by the characters in the story. It's really funny to see Ian Fleming, before he wrote James Bond, very involved in the war effort, especially when you know, in hindsight, the man he was to become.

>>> The power and force of Fiction

A fascinating aspect of the film is its use of fiction.

Most of the characters belonging to the Twenty Committee write novels in their spare time.

Producer Iain Canning remarks: "'The Ruse' is a tribute to fiction, knowing that we relied on Michelle Ashford's very beautiful adaptation of Ben Macintyre's book. The film, through its characters, the acting and its subject, pays homage to the strength of a most captivating story".

Director John Madden also confirms the importance of fiction, both for the characters and for himself.

"In a profound and assertive way, it's a film about the power of fiction. The community that the film evokes is constantly in contact with writers. Everyone writes, including the one we all know: Ian Fleming, which is at the heart of the plot. Those who came up with the idea for the scheme are, basically, writers. Some of them were novelists, whose books were published, and who were about criminals deceiving the police without letting trail behind them. So they were perfectly comfortable with the idea of ​​this unexpected shot. Telling a story and hoping that the public will believe it is very much part of my job. And that's exactly what these people were doing. characters".

"La Ruse" is in theaters this Wednesday, in partnership with Europe 1 → Go to Club Europe 1 to try to receive 2 invitations for the film!