User reviews

One suspects this film registered better with viewers in 1943 than it does today. Despite being suggested by the actual assassination of Reichs Protector of Bohemia and Moravia Reinhard Heydrich, better known to the Czechs as "The Hangman" because of his excessive brutality in dealing with residents of the conquered regions, it is almost total fiction. Even so it is not bad as a rather involved drama and was very likely good anti-nazi propaganda.

Perhaps it is well to start with what actually did happen to Heydrich on May 29, 1942. Two young Czechs, Jan Kubis and Josef Ganchik, parachuted in from an RAF plane and managed to ambush "the Hangman" riding in his open Mercedes. Armed with both machine pistols and a bomb, the apparently did little harm by shooting, but did explode the bomb under the car. Heydrich's spleen was penetrated by bomb fragments and debris causing death several days later, possibly more by infection than anything else. The two Czechs evaded capture briefly, but witnesses under torture revealed their hiding place in a church and the SS killed them. In a massive retaliation, Hitler picked the village of Lidice, more or less at random, from among places known to harbor anti-German sentiment, and ordered its total annihilation. The people of Lidice had nothing whatever to do with the assassination, of course.

In HANGMEN ALSO DIE we have the story of a lone assassin, using an English made pistol, whose getaway taxi was forced to move by German soldiers, causing him to take refuge during the curfew at the home of a Czech professor. The professor's daughter, Mascha, had impulsively directed the German pursuit away from him. The German police suspect the girl, but release her in the hope she will lead them to the wanted man. They also round up many Czechs, including the girl's father, and begin shooting them as hostages. The girl at first intends to give information, hoping to save her father, but in the end is persuaded otherwise by the Czech resistance. A plan is concocted to bamboozle the SS and save the assassin and the girl, but what it is you will have to see for yourself. Be assured it is incredible.

As you see, this story has little to do with the historic assassination and its aftermath, beyond illustrating the SS brutality, but it does make a mildly entertaining wartime adventure with good propaganda value, largely because of the rather low key, intensely personal nature of the plot elements. Some of the characters are very real and believable, e.g. the Gestapo Inspector Gruber, the girl Mascha, and her father, all ably portrayed by Alexander Granach, Anna Lee, and Walter Brennan respectively. On the other hand, some characters are more like cardboard cut-outs and get wooden performances to suit. Brian Donlevy as Dr.Svoboda, the assassin, fits this category alas, as do a number of others. What realism there is seems likely to have been the contribution of Bertolt Brecht rather than John Wexley, who got the credit for the screenplay. One likes to think that Fritz Lang did the best he could with a mixed bag of acting talent, but this can hardly be said to be his best effort.

Just why Hollywood producers seem to prefer fiction to the facts when dealing with historical material is a major mystery to me. In 1943 the general facts of the assassination were known, if not all the details, and could have made just as dramatic a story as this fictional one. It is worth a watch, though, especially if you like Anna Lee.

In 1942, the Czech underground assassinates Reinhard Heydrich, the governor of Bohemia-Moravia. Heydrich's assassin tries to escape capture.

This is based on a true story of course -- it's a well-known episode of World War II. Czech commandos were brought in from Britain on a mission with a slim chance of survival for the selfless agents. They unfortunately met a sad end after being betrayed by a fellow Czech. The history is described very well in books such as Callum MacDonald's "The Killing of SS Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich".

In 1943, when this film was made, were the full details of the actual events widely available in the USA? I'm not sure, but it seems unlikely.

The story as presented here is the tale of what happens one day when a girl goes out to buy vegetables for supper, and when a taxi driver lets his finicky engine idle. Perhaps this plot was fabricated for want of any other alternative, but its sheer ordinariness adds to its immediacy.

The reptilian Heydrich was one of the architects of Hitler's Final Solution. It's no coincidence that the plan to assassinate him was code-named "Anthropoid".

Hans Heinrich von Twardowski plays him briefly at the beginning of the drama. He's cold-blooded, vicious, rabid ... and a little effeminate. That aspect seems questionable. In 1943, there were at least as many reasons for knowing what his character represented as there were occupied countries in Europe. This particular embellishment seems to add little or nothing to the suspense.

(Twardowski himself was a German exile in Hollywood. If you can read German and have a look at the titles of the films he made in 1928 and 1929, you can probably hazard a guess as to why he was forced to leave Hitler's Germany.)

Brian Donlevy plays the assassin. It's not by chance that this character is named Dr. Svoboda. Svoboda is a common name, but it also happens to be the Czech word for "freedom".

I always find Donlevy effective, particularly so in "The Great McGinty" (1940) for Preston Sturges, but he does have a certain B actor limitation on access to his character's inner thoughts. He doesn't quite have the hunted quality of someone facing certain capture and torture. A perspiring lip might have helped.

Better is Alexander Granach as the Gestapo man Gruber, a Bob Hoskins sort of person, only sinister. He's ruthless, cunning, perfect in the part.

Walter Brennan appears as a Czech professor arrested and held as a hostage. Prof. Walter Brennan, that's right! He's very good. Considering the typecasting he must have been fighting against, he's excellent in fact.

My moderate criticism of some of the performances notwithstanding, the suspense in the story was of the nail-biting kind, I felt. I wouldn't have wanted to watch this in 1943 -- it's just too bleak, too disturbing. When hostages are being held by the Gestapo, it's a lose-lose situation all around. All possible outcomes are disastrous.

I guess the filmmakers felt -- knew -- that this would be more than a contemporary audience could really handle in the middle of wartime. Hence the film has an uplifting, artificial, fantasy ending which arrives like a deus ex machina.

That's certainly a drawback for viewers now, but I can't fault anyone. The context of the times couldn't have allowed any other solution.

Fritz Lang directed this return to Mitteleuropa, the scene of his youth and early classic films. He runs the show like a police procedural, making it all too real. He allows himself a couple of his great shots which I will allow you to discover for yourself.

In real life, the actual Czech assassins -- Josef Gabcik and Jan Kubis, plus their look-out man, Josef Valcik -- were all killed in battle at their hiding place in the Karel Boromejsky Church in Prague on June 18, 1942.

Heydrich's state funeral had been held earlier in Berlin on June 9. The Nazis had Siegfried's Funeral March from Wagner's "Götterdämmerung" played for the occasion, probably with extra added bombast.

That's the sort of heroic farewell that the martyred Czechs should have received.

In case you can't tell from the title, Hangmen Also Die! Is a very heavy film. It's one of those underground resistance movies made during the height of WWII, and it's incredibly powerful even now after we know we've won the war. There were many of this sub-genre made during the time period before an Allied victory was assumed, and they all captured a very scary feeling. Stick together, trust no one, and be prepared to give your life so your children won't have to live in a German-speaking world.

This movie takes place in Czechoslovakia, during the Nazi occupation with strict curfews and rules against congregation. However, there's a man out when he shouldn't be, running around where he shouldn't be. He kills a Nazi soldier, and just when he's about to be captured, a young woman who watched the incident does a small act of kindness. She lies to the pursuing guards and points them in the wrong direction, buying the man some time. Little does she know she's opened her entire family to scrutiny and changed everyone's lives forever.

Brian Donlevy is the man on the run, and Anna Lee is the woman who saves him. He believes he can trust her, so he seeks refuge for the night in her home as an alibi. Her father, Walter Brennan, and her mother Nana Bryant, are against the idea, knowing it will get them into trouble - but they're already in too deep to turn back. So, Brian stays the night and the family tries to come up with a plausible story that will keep everyone out of trouble. Sure enough, the Gestapo find out and question them, headed by the ruthless interrogator Alexander Granach.

Fritz Lang's fantastic direction keeps a fast pace that never lets you catch your breath. Everyone in the cast is uncharacteristically intense, giving some of their best performances - and I can't help but give credit to Lang as well. When the entire cast is at the top of their game, the director has usually given his all, too. Brian Donlevy is usually a villain, Walter Brennan is usually a crotchety hick, Gene Lockhart is usually genial, and Alexander Granach made very few talkies after his successful silent career. Partly because of these against-type performances, and partly because of the suspenseful script, the movie constantly surprises. This is not easy to watch, but it's worth it if you can.

Superb addition to Fritz Langs wonderful catalogue of films.

We see here his trademark 'almost documentary' style as well as propaganda (See The Last Testament of Dr Mabuse for another take on the Nazi regime). His trademark shadows (See 'M').

Early in the film we see Heydrich, an evil dictator who used his mandate from Hitler in the fullest possible way. Here he is played by Hans Heinrich von Twardowski who really is scary in portrayal. Lang shows this brilliantly in the way that the Czech people fear him, and also that he is feared by his own men. The master stroke here is the way Heydrich speaks only in German with no subtitles, given an English translation by someone else in the room. People fear him as he is and even though they cannot understand him, they fear what he has said.

The film centres around the reprisals after Heydrich's assassination. The assassin is still living/hiding in Prague. A few know his identity. But they know that if they inform the Gestapo they will be killed and they also know if they don't they may die anyway.

The tight script builds the tension to the highest level to a brilliant climax.

The cast are brilliant, especially the ever reliable Walter Brennan. An actor of the highest caliber. Abley backed up by Anna Lee, Brian Donlevy & Dennis O'Keefe.

This film is made all the more brilliant by the fact that it's idea was conceived only a short time after Heydrich's real-life assassination, not necessarily from a propaganda point of view, but with Lang you know you will get a film that will bench mark the film industry for years to come and people will sit up and take notice.

The actors in this film made any number of cheesy B movies during the war, but with Berthold Brecht and Fritz Lang behind them they made a movie touching on greatness. Check out the characterizations of Heydrich, the policeman Gruber, and the other Gestapo agents. Walter Brennan as the patriotic father was an odd choice, but maybe I'm being blinded by his later Western sidekick roles. The sets are outstanding. Although obviously on a Hollywood back lot they made a very believable Prague, using in part pre-war travelogue footage of the city. Indoor scenes are excellent. The actors look like they live in a real place, not a cuckooland paradise that most hack directors would give you.

This is loosely based on the true story of a member of the Czech underground assasinating the nazi regional governer, a ruthless fellow they call 'the Hangman'. The story revolves around the assasin and the family that unknowingly hid him from the gestapo. When questioned by the gestapo, the family says the guy was there to see their daughter, who happens to be engaged to another fine gentleman. So this little situation complicates the story, as the gestapo detective,a very ruthless chap, tries to catch them in the lie. From there the story moves along in chilling fashion when 400 townfolks are rounded up to be executed in groups of 10 each day until the assasin is turned in. This causes people to question their inner strength and makes them wonder if it is worth it to sacrifice themselves to keep him hidden. The story gets resolves in a very clever way which I will not reveal. The movie has that film noir/Hitchkockian feel to it with the protagonist being chased down and making clever escapes by the skin of his teeth. Although the movie drags a bit here and there, it ends up being a worthwhile suspenseful drama and also makes you think a bit about what would you do if you were put in that situation.

The Nazi "protector" of Czechoslovakia is murdered and Gestapo is let loose to hunt down the assassin. Will the underground resistance survive? Will the assassin be betrayed by the Czech people as Gestapo murders innocent people to bring the assassin forward?

This is a very good movie, the plot brings lets the suspense gradually grow throughout the movie. This means that the beginning did seem a little slow, but given time, the patience will be rewarded. The ending is very good and you're not really sure exactly what will happen. The actors are good and the cinematic work very good.

There is a portion of propaganda in there as well, however, the evident propaganda is cut to a few scenes and do not interfere with the plot or the movie in itself. Instead, it is rather well integrated in the movie, and actually only bring the movie to another level.

Clearly set in the WWII, but this movie will never get old.

8/10

Hangmen Also Die! (1943)

The best part of this movie is knowing it was made right in the middle of the war, not in some recreation of the events. It's a little hyperbolic, for sure, but really well acted (both the Nazis and the Czechs), and it ends up being a battle of wits and tricks between the two sides.

Fritz Lang was a refuge from Nazi Europe and made this in Hollywood, with an expected sensibility for the cruelties and barbarism of the occupying nasties. And they probably were this nasty--worse, in truth, though less comically so, as the movie sometimes pushes it a bit. Still, really enjoyable, in all. Yet, somehow, it was long. The twists from one scene to another started to sound familiar, and the tension was sustained rather than invigorated, if that makes any sense.

Brian Donlevy is the leading good guy here, and he's always a little less than compelling, though he is not in most of the scenes so I suppose that's fine. The double-crosser was played by Gene Lockhart, whose presence grows as the movie gets on, and by the end he's really pretty amazing (far beyond the caricature of, say, the judge he played in "Miracle on 34th Street"). Walter Brennan makes an appearance, recognizable mostly by his voice. Two of the Nazi higher-ups were terrific, both the Pilsner guzzling brute and the slightly comical but scary gestapo head.

Lang is no fool, and he makes this movie not only a pleasure, but an important tool to remind viewers to be involved, to realize that you can fight oppression, even Nazi oppression, with enough wits and sacrifice.

Supposedly, this film was suppressed in the USA because it came out in favor of the Communists. I just watched it today, and I can only remember one faint mention of the Russians (and don't forget, they were our allies at the time!). What must have really irked McCarthy was this film's scathing portrayal of those who snitch on their friends and co-workers, and those who coerce them into doing so.

Gene Lockhart, whom I always think of as likable Bob Cratchit from the Reginald Owen "Christmas Carol," deserves high honors for his intense portrayal of a Czech traitor who works behind his neighbors' backs to betray them to the Nazi occupiers. Anna Lee is strong in her central role as the woman caught up in a dangerous plot. Many of the supporting characters also shine, such as Alexander Granach as the lusty Nazi enforcer Gruber. I couldn't quite warm up to Brian Donlevy in the central role. (He looks too much like an American businessman, like Raymond Bailey.) And Walter Brennan, although he looks great, seems out of place because of his heavy New England accent.

What makes this movie a standout is the script and direction. There's not a wasted moment in this long film, and plenty of interesting set pieces (the theater, the cab ride/street confrontation, etc.). Brecht and Lang weave a web that grows larger but not looser as the film progresses.

One of a handful of propaganda films made by Hollywood during WWII to show how various occupied European countries dealt with the situation; similar films included THE MOON IS DOWN (1941), EDGE OF DARKNESS (1943), THE NORTH STAR (1943) and THIS LAND IS MINE (1943). This one, however, differs from these in that it tackles a real-life event i.e. the assassination of Heydrich - dubbed "The Hangman" (his assassination was the subject of two more films, the contemporaneous HITLER'S MADMAN [1943] and OPERATION DAYBREAK [1975]) - and is further elevated by the contribution of two important figures of pre-war German art, director Lang and writer Bertolt Brecht.

It also features a great cast (mostly delivering excellent performances, but is saddled with a miscast and rather stiff Brian Donlevy in the lead): Walter Brennan and Gene Lockhart are featured in overly familiar roles but their contribution is, as ever, reliable and entirely welcome; best of all, perhaps, are Anna Lee and Alexander Granach; beloved character actor Dwight Frye (most familiar to horror-film buffs) appears here in one of his last roles but, as was generally the case, is regrettably given only a couple of lines!

Long and heavy-going, with the propagandist element coming off as fairly corny now, but the film is held firmly together by Lang's fine direction and James Wong Howe's superb noir-ish lighting (the Region 1 DVD by Kino was eventually re-issued as part of a 5-Disc Noir set). It also involves a couple of scuffles which are quite tense and energetic (Granach's death scene is especially striking), while the last third resorts to the organized frame-up by the Czechs of a traitor in their midst (collaborationist Lockhart) - which, in itself, is no less frightening an act than the heinous persecution of the Nazi regime!

I'm confused, however, about the film's running-time: the print I watched ran for 129 minutes in PAL mode (which would bring it to about 134 minutes when converted to NTSC); even so, it contains the ending missing from the DVDs released in Regions 1 and 2 which, being the same version i.e. cut and having the same length (134 minutes), would indicate that the Kino edition is a PAL conversion - which means a full running-time of 139 minutes (a minute short of the 'official' length, as per Lotte Eisner's book on Lang)! To make matters worse, both the Leslie Halliwell and Leonard Maltin film guides I own cite HANGMEN ALSO DIE! as being 131 minutes long!!

Hangmen Also Die is an OK sort of film, fatally marred by the fact that it is pure propaganda, obviously slanted towards a wartime audience. The plot, involving an elaborate scheme to incriminate a Czech, who is both a businessman and Nazi informer is a complete fiction! One is left with the idea that the real assassin simply got away with it! The real facts were generally available at this time, and I'm amazed that Lang and the others involved here got away with this! The real story is a bit less upbeat: Heydrich was killed by not one, but two Czechs, who fired at him and finally killed him by lobbing a bomb at his vehicle. The two hid out in a church and were hunted down and killed just shortly thereafter. Sadly, not all the Czechs were as loyal to the resistance as those shown in this film. Someone informed on the killers, which led to their speedy demise. This is the incident which triggered the famous reprisal, carried out by the Nazis: for revenge for the murder of Heydrich they destroyed an entire Czech town, Lidice, the locale chosen at random. Since this is very famous part of wartime history, I am sad that so many viewers don't know what the real story was. The theme of Nazi reprisal is worked in very well, but the film steers clear of the much more shocking and ugly truth. A pity-for the real story would have been a much clearer picture of the true brutality of the Nazis. I guess 1940s audiences weren't considered mature enough to handle the truth! Again this gross distortion of the facts here is a fatal flaw. Sad, since I think the director, with more accurate material could have produced a great film...tragedies such as these were more his forte.

The names Fritz Lang and Bert Brecht (yes, he's called Bert, not Bertold, in the on screen credits) can go a long way to giving credit in a movie, but I think reviewers here are over-praising this film. First, I'd criticize the script as being overplotted, with too many tangles and endless complications, like a Baroque church with too many ornaments. Some of the dialogue has to be criticized, too. I know it was written during the war and served as a propaganda tool, but here we judge films as entertainment, maybe even art. At several points the movie stalls while a character speechifies, sounding oh-so-noble but at the same time oh-so-unnatural. People may act nobly in real life, but they seldom accompany their actions with little speeches aimed at some distant audience, beautiful cooked-up phrases for the ages. It's jarring, understandable perhaps because of the war, but it adds a false note to the realism of the film. Second, at one moment I was quite shocked at the directing. Fairly early in the story Natasha angrily accuses the assassin of cowardice for hiding while the hostages rounded up by the Nazis are paying the price with their lives. The way she leans forward over his desk, extending her arm to full length from the shoulder and jabbing it at him, not once but twice, looks completely unnatural. That's not the way a real person points an accusatory finger. It's obvious that the actress has had bad direction to move and pose in such a false manner.

Yes, this film is interesting to some extent, perhaps as a period piece. The plot complications, while over-done, at least create the air of something adult and intelligent. The outdoor scenes are all done on a stage set, so it doesn't have the benefit of complete authenticity.

I enjoyed seeing Walter Brennan playing an elderly professor with some brains, having had quite enough of his typecasting as a lovable but cantankerous old codger with that high-pitched, whiny voice of his.

Heydrich was actually killed by a team of expatriates sent by the British. Fritz Lang's long (134 minutes) seems to me to be more relatable to his masterpiece M, in which the police and the underworld search separately for the insane murderer, leading into a bizarre sequence in which the criminals hold a trial of Peter Lorre, a nightmarish reflection of the normal. Here, the Gestapo searches for murderer Brian Donleavy, taking hostages and shooting them, which causes Donleavy a lot of angst. Meanwhile, the Underground creates an illusion that it is a spy who has infiltrated their organization who has done the killing. So it becomes a race: can they convince the Nazis before the hostages are all killed? And are the deaths worth it to them?

There's a certain amount of standard WWII propaganda about the valiant people of the occupied countries, but Lang gets some startlingly good performances. You wouldn't expect Byron Foulger to be someone you'd want in your underground, nor for Jonathan Hale to be brave with a bullet in his lungs, but it's in movies like these, when skilled actors step out of their comfort zones, that tell the audience that they, too, can be brave. With Walter Brennan, Lionel Stander, Sara Padden, Dennis O'Keefe, Anna Lee, George Irving, and Reinhold Schünzel.

Bertolt Brecht once said, "Art is not a mirror to hold up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it". Well old Bertolt used a sledgehammer on this one and did it blindfolded.

Although based on the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in WW2, it's more like a journey into alternate reality.

John Wesley was credited with the screenplay, but apparently Brecht, the famous German playwright who was loved-up by the Hollywood intelligentsia when he fled Nazi Germany, shaped the script. He couldn't have known the true facts about the assassination until the war was over, however that did not stop him from a flight of fancy about what had happened.

The film is set in a studio Czechoslovakia and full of standard Hollywood histrionics, although Brecht had been outspoken about what he considered the mediocrity of Hollywood culture. Ultimately it didn't do justice to the brave Czechs who were really involved.

Doctor Svoboda (Brian Donlevy) carries out the assassination of Heydrich, and while escaping is helped by a young Czech woman, Mascha Novotny (Anna Lee). She continues to protect him although her father, Professor Stephen Novotny (Walter Brennan) is rounded up as a hostage to be shot by the Nazis if the assassin does not turn himself in.

Brecht's worldview comes through in speeches by the various characters. But as the film moves away from what the filmmakers actually knew about the assassination, it gets more unbelievable, especially when Gene Lockhart's character, Emil Czaka, enters the picture. Like many WW2 Hollywood movies depicting resistance in Nazi-occupied Europe, business types emerge as the most despicable.

But when it got to the depiction of Heydrich, the film was really tripping out. Rather than the effete, mugging of Hans Heinrich von Twardowski, a little research on newsreels at the time would have shown the far scarier, cool, controlled figure Heydrich really was.

There are some fine performances in the film, especially Anna Lee an actress of genuine warmth, but the main interest these days is that "Hangman Also Die!" shows what Allied audiences knew or thought they knew about what was happening in the Nazi sphere during the war.

It also tends to send one searching for what really happened. Some starting points are "Operation Daybreak" (1975), "Anthropoid" (2016) and "SS3: The Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich" Narrated by John Shrapnel (1992).

Quite a few Nazi exiles were involved with Hangman Also Die, a project that even if hardly true is many cuts above the typical wartime propaganda flick. Director Fritz Lang, writer Berthold Brecht and many in the cast knew the Nazi mentality well and what it was like to live under them. They had the intelligence and foresight to leave while the getting out was good.

We in America knew about the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, but scarce few details before the war was over. Lang and Brecht created an apocryphal tale of what should have happened. Hangman Also Die is one intricately plotted affair, a lot more than you would see it in a film of this type in wartime America.

Hans Heinrich Von Twardowski is on ever so briefly as Heydrich in the beginning. His performance reminded me of Christopher Plummer as Commodus in The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire. Heydrich was far from the colorful character he's portrayed here in real life. This was a man who could go home to the wife and kids, home and hearth after a day's gassing at Auschwitz. Still Twardowski is memorable if not true to life.

We never see the actual shooting. We do see Brian Donlevy who is a doctor as well as an assassin fleeing the scene of the attack and Anna Lee misdirecting the pursuing Nazis just by patriotic instinct. The Nazi response is swift and brutal. They start shooting chosen hostages one of them being Anna Lee's father university professor Walter Brennan.

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised at Brennan here who gave a well thought out and restrained performance. In the North Star I thought he was out of place as a Russian peasant. I was expecting the same, but it was nice not to have expectations lived up to.

The whole film is about a collective crisis of conscience for the Czech people. What do we do about this assassin, do we hide him, support him, or do we turn him in hopes that hostage shooting will cease? In the meantime the Gestapo presses on with the investigation.

Gene Lockhart is also in the cast as a collaborator. His exposure as one is one of the best scenes in the film. Lockhart played many roles like this in his film career, but he was absolutely at his best in a part he honed to perfection.

It should have happened this way in real life. The way the Gestapo closes the books on the Heydrich case is really well done. All I can say is that Brecht and Lang play on the characteristics of the Nazis, most of all their paranoia. Intricately plotted and executed beautifully by Fritz Lang and his cast.

A propaganda film, produced during World War II, written and directed by two of the most famous anti-Nazi Germans, exiled to the United States at the time, Fritz Lang and Berthold Brecht.

The story evokes the anti-Nazi resistance of the occupied Czechoslovak people, protecting the assassin of Reinhard Heydrich, the former head of the SS, head of the Reich Security Main Office and deputy Reich Protector in Bohemia and Moravia, even under the threat of death of hundreds of hostages, chosen among the most important civilian, religious and military figures in Czechoslovakia.

If the assassination was real, the story told in the film is fiction. But an interesting and well-woven plot, whose main objectives were to raise morale and honor of those who resisted the Nazi occupation in several European countries.

As I watch this movie I cannot think of what I see today. You always think it can't happen. With a media that lies to the people. The politicians who lie because they want more power. And the many people who don't pay attention to what is going on. And when it is right in front of you they don't see the lies. And if you dare to speak out agains them, you will find out what they really are.

Here and there you see faces that popped up throughout the forties. Brian Donlevy and Walter Brennan. I see most people consider this Fritz Lang film of 1943 to be quite good. I truly wish I could concur. The Germans don't act like Germans in the office behind a desk. The film is two things..world war II propaganda and massive over dramatization.. It is a lot of over acting..only ever able Walter Brennan does somewhat of a decent job, but I am quite sure he knew this would not be anything but rousing the spirit of all oppressed under the boot heel of Adolph Hitler..No acting nominations came of this and the dialog doesn't come off as authentic..I wish I could urge you to see this, but I cannot. There are many old forgettable films..alas, this is one.Sorry! Good actors..not good acting.