By The number of spy stories that have come out after World War II is incredible. You can find any number of books and stories where deception played a critical role in achieving victory for the Allies. Most of the schemes they cooked up are just plain nuts. From inflatable tanks and ghost armies to double-agent spies who filed false reports on British defenses…from Portugal, there are quite a few of these insane stories. Operation Mincemeat is just such a story.
Operation Mincemeat was an operation that saw Ewen Montagu and Charles Cholmondeley devise a plan to deceive the Germans about where the Allies were going to launch an invasion in Europe. They came up with the idea of using a dead body, with fake invasion plans on it, and leave the body for the Germans spies to find. This plan was not only given the thumbs up by Bond creator Ian Fleming himself but Winston Churchill as well. This plan was not the craziest plan to come out of the war, but it may have been one of the most important.
Colin Firth has been signed on to play Montagu in the upcoming adaption of this story, based on Ben Macintyre’s book of the same name. John Madden will be helming the film. Regarding the film, Madden has said:
“In the context of World War II narratives, the story of Operation Mincemeat is unique – a bizarre and seductive cinematic blend of high-level espionage and ingenious fiction, where the stakes could hardly be higher.
“Michelle Ashford’s script fuses multiple strands and moods: tense, romantic, thrilling, unexpectedly funny, and endlessly surprising. It tells a richly human story of the soldiers we seldom see, who fight a different kind of war in shadows and deception, haunted by the knowledge that certainty and guarantee of success are nowhere to be found.”
World War II had no shortage of unusual plans and schemes that aided in the Allied victory and this adaptation is shining a light on one of the more important ones to involve a dead body as a key component.
The production for Operation Mincemeat is set to start later this year.
Colin Firth to Star in John Madden’s World War II Drama ‘Operation Mincemeat’ [Variety]