In The Night of the Generals (1967), Omar Sharif played Major Grau, a German military intelligence officer who, during the Second World War, investigates the murder of a prostitute in Warsaw and becomes convinced that the killer is one of three generals. Directed by Anatole Litvak, the film also starred Peter O’Toole, Tom Courtenay and Donald Pleasence.
Grau is principled, persistent and out of step with the regime he serves, and Sharif plays him with a quiet moral authority. The film follows Grau’s investigation from Warsaw in 1942 to Paris in 1944, and Sharif’s performance gives the mystery its conscience, a man seeking justice in a world where justice has been abandoned.