HANGMEN ALSO DIE. (1943) DIRECTED BY FRITZ LANG. PRODUCED BY FRITZ LANG AND ARNOLD PRESSBURGER. STORY BY FRITZ LANG AND BERTOLT BRECHT. SCREENPLAY BY JOHN WEXLEY. MUSIC BY HANNS EISLER. CINEMATOGRAPHY BY JAMES WONG HOWE.
STARRING BRIAN DONLEVY, WALTER
BRENNAN, ANNA LEE, GENE LOCKHART, ALEXANDER GRANACH AND HANS HEINRICH
VON TWARDOWSKI.
REVIEW BY
SANDRA HARRIS. ©
Fritz Lang (1890-1976) was the
directorial genius behind possibly the most exciting film ever made,
METROPOLIS (1927). That film
is just so old and so breath-takingly good that I kind of get the shivers
whenever I think about it. HANGMEN ALSO DIE is
a film made during the Austrian-German film-maker's Hollywood period.
Lang
left Germany, first for Paris and then eventually for Hollywood, the year after Hitler's
Nazi Party came to power in 1933. He was concerned about his Jewish
heritage and, besides, his film THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE
had been banned by the Nazis for
possibly containing anti-Nazi content.
This didn't
stop Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Minister For Propaganda and the man
who stayed by Hitler's side in the bunker till the bitter end, from
offering Lang the position of head of German film studio UFA because he greatly admired Lang's work. Lang
declined. He left Germany forever, leaving behind him his wife, the
screenwriter Thea Von Harbou, who had begun to sympathise with the
Nazis in the 1930s. You've heard of 'irreconcilable differences,' right...?
HANGMEN ALSO DIE loosely
tells the story of a true event that took place during the Second
World War. In 1942, a man called Reinhard Heydrich was assassinated
in Czechoslovakia. He was the Nazi Reich-Protector of German-occupied
Prague and the Number Two officer in the SS.
He was
the brains behind KRISTALLNACHT (1938),
the attack on Jews and their
businesses which historians consider heralded the real start of the
Holocaust. Jeez, what a nice guy. He was known as 'the
Hangman of Prague,' hence the
title of the movie, and it seems like not too many Czechs mourned him
when he was shot by a member of the Czech Resistance. It's estimated
that about 1,300 Czechs were slaughtered by the Germans in
retaliation for Heydrich's death.
In the
film, this SS officer whom Hitler himself described as 'the
man with the iron heart,' is
shot by a doctor called Svoboda who also happens to be a Czech
Resistance fighter. In his attempts to escape Nazi retribution,
Svoboda rather selfishly, I feel, involves an innocent family known
as the Novotnys by going to their house to hide out.
Poor
old Dr. Novotny, the kindly and cultured paterfamilias,
ends up being chosen as one of
the Czech 'hostages' who
will be shot unless the real would-be assassin of Heydrich comes
forward.
There are some deeply touching scenes in the barracks where
some of these hostages are kept prisoner as Dr. Novotny and other
innocent men chat quietly and compose poetry and patriotic songs as
they wait with dignity for their inevitable executions.
Dr. Novotny's
daughter Mascha, who saved Svoboda from the Nazis immediately after
he shot Heydrich, is also dragged into the messy and frightening
situation against her will. She is hauled into Gestapo Headquarters
to answer interminable questions about the strange man who called to
their house, in other words Svoboda.
She is
threatened with torture down in 'the vaults' unless
she tells the Gestapo what they want to hear. They've already
tortured the poor old fruit-and-vegetable seller, Mrs. Dvorak, in
connection with the shooting but the brave old lady, covering with all her might for
Mascha and her family, is a hard nut to crack.
The Czechs
all come across as courageous and deeply patriotic people in the
film, with the exception, of course, of the fat and duplicitous Emil
Czaka, the double agent who runs with the hares and hunts with the
hounds, as we say here in Ireland.
By contrast,
the Nazis, the occupying power, are portrayed as cruel savages who
perpetrate mindless acts of violence on the oppressed peoples they've
crushed under their jackbooted heels.
Also,
they're not to be trusted and their word counts for nothing. They
promise 'rewards' for information or mercy that doesn't materialise
once they get what they're after. Apart from Heydrich himself, who is
seen as practically a monster in the film, the main 'evil
Nazi' is Gestapo Inspector Alois
Gruber, the part of whom is marvellously played by Alexander Granach,
who sadly died in 1945.
Brian
Donlevy is excellent too as Svoboda. You might remember him from
the HAMMER films THE QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT (1955)
and its sequel, QUATERMASS 2 (1957),
in which he plays the over-coated and somewhat dour but lovely Professor Bernard Quatermass.
This excellent film, out now on Blu-Ray (complete with extra features) from UK home video company ARROW FILMS, your favourite movie people, is a trip back in time to one of Europe's darkest periods. It was nominated for two Academy Awards and is a brilliant example of how Germany's cinematic exiles had a huge effect on American culture.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA
HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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