The Night Fighters

Dermot O'Neill (Robert Mitchum) is recruited into the Irish Republican Army (IRA) when a unit is formed in his Northern Irelandtown during World War II. Reaction to the news is mixed; his mother is strongly against it while his father is proud. Dermot's brother Ned and sister Bella are ambivalent, but his girlfriend Neeve Donnelly (Anne Heywood) ends their relationship, believing that the IRA will make a murderer of him. Dermot and his friend Sean Reilly (Richard Harris) are selected to participate in a raid on a British armory to steal weapons and ammunition. Don McGinnis (Dan O'Herlihy) is frustrated because, as commandant of the unit, he is too important to risk. The theft is executed perfectly. However, their next attack, to destroy a guarded power plant in concert with a planned German invasion, results in bloodshed. In order to flee, Dermot shoots a soldier blocking the way out. Sean is wounded in the foot and Johnny Corrigan is killed. Dermot and Sean evade their pursuers and manage to cross the border to safety in the Irish Free State. Dermot returns home, leaving his friend to recuperate. Despite Dermot's advice to avoid returning, Sean tries to sneak across the border and is captured by the police. Dermot wants to stage a rescue, but McGinnis rejects the idea. Sean is sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment. McGinnis wishes to exact revenge by attacking a police barracks. Dermot opposes this plan, as a policeman's wife and children are living there, and warns that he will inform the authorities if McGinnis does not change his mind. When McGinnis refuses to relent, Dermot tells him that he is quitting the IRA. He is beaten by IRA members, but he is saved when a police patrol arrives on the scene. Dermot executes his threat and informs the police, but without disclosing names. He is taken to stand trial as an informant. Bella becomes concerned when her brother does not return home, so she finds Neeve and they consult Dermot's friend, a cobbler called Jimmy Hannafin, who believes that he knows what has happened. He recruits Ned to help in the rescue. Neeve refuses to be left behind, but Bella is sent home to reassure her parents. Once they find and free Dermot, guarded only by a youngster, Jimmy arranges for a friend to drive Dermot to Belfast, where he can leave the country with Neeve. The IRA men begin searching for Dermot. McGinnis stations himself at the O'Neill home. In the darkness and driving rain, he mistakes Bella, who is wearing Dermot's coat, for Dermot and shoots her dead. He is horrified to discover that he has killed the woman whom he loves.