Ni liv

Infobox Film
name = Ni Liv


image_size =
caption =
director = Arne Skouen
producer = Arne Skouen
writer = Arne Skouen
narrator =
starring = Jack Fjeldstad
Henny Moan
Alf Malland
Joachim Holst-Jensen
Rolf Søder
music =
cinematography =
editing =
distributor = Louis de Rochemont Associates
released = flagicon|USA January 5, 1959
runtime = 96 min.
country = Norway
language = Norwegian
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id =
imdb_id = 0050762

"Ni Liv" (en: "Nine Lives") is a 1957 Norwegian movie about Jan Baalsrud, who was a member of the Norwegian resistance during World War II. In 1943, he participated in an operation to destroy a German air control tower. This mission was compromised when he and his fellow soldiers, seeking a trusted resistance contact, accidentally made contact with a civilian who betrayed them to the Nazis.

The movie was directed by Arne Skouen. In 1991 Norwegian television viewers voted it the best Norwegian movie ever made [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050762/trivia] . The movie is based on the book "We Die Alone" by David Howarth.

Plot

The morning after their blunder, their boatndash containing 8 tons of explosives intended to destroy the air control towerndash was attacked by a German vessel. The Norwegians destroyed their boat by exploding their payload, and Baalsrud and some other surviving soldiers fled.

They swam ashore in ice cold Arctic waters, and Baalsrud was the only one to escape the Nazi onslaught and, soaking wet and missing one shoe, he escaped up a ravine and shot and killed one of the enemy soldiers. He evaded capture for roughly two months, suffering from frostbite and snow blindness. He failed in his bid to reach the border of neutral Sweden and threw himself on the mercy of some Norwegian citizens who happened to have access to the Norwegian underground. While hiding in their barn, he amputated a significant number of his own frostbitten toes with an ordinary knife.

These citizens managed to move Baalsrud close to the Swedish border, but were forced to leave him in a snow cave for roughly two weeks before they returned and delivered him to a reindeer herder who finally took him over the frontier to safety.

He recuperated in a Swedish hospital for seven months, returned to England through South-Africa, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and America before rejoining the fight. [cite web
last=
first=
authorlink=
coauthors=
title=Eventyret om Oppegård (Norwegian)
work=
publisher=
date=2001
url=http://www.oppegardeventyret.homestead.com/JanBaalsrud.html
format=
doi=
accessdate=2006-07-10 ]

In 1958 the movie was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Palm. In 1991 Norwegian television audiences voted the movie to be the best Norwegian movie ever made.

References

* cite book
last=Howarth
first=David
title=We Die Alone: A WWII Epic of Escape and Endurance
publisher=The Lyons Press
date=1999
location=
isbn=ISBN 1-55821-973-0

External links

*
* [http://movies2.nytimes.com/mem/movies/review.html?_r=1&title1=Nine%20Lives&title2=&reviewer=BOSLEY%20CROWTHER&pdate=19590106&v_id=&oref=slogin New York Times Review from 1959]