Watch on the Rhine (1943) User Reviews

An excellent movie

[homer_simpson91 · 8/10 · 23 November 2001]

It may (or may not) be considered interesting that the only reason I really checked out this movie in the first place was because I wanted to see the performance of the man who beat out Humphrey Bogart in his CASABLANCA (10/10 role for the Best Actor Oscar. (I still would have given the Oscar to Bogie, but Paul Lukas did do a great job and deserved the nomination, at least.) Well, I'm glad I did check this movie out, because I enjoyed it immensely. I think the movie did preach a little, but not only did I not mind, I enjoyed the speeches and was never bored with them.

The acting was outstanding in this movie. I especially enjoyed Paul Lukas, Lucile Watson (rightfully nominated for an Oscar), Bette Davis (wrongfully not nominated), George Coulouris and, oddly, Eric Roberts, who plays the middle child. I really enjoyed his character: an odd-looking boy who talks like some sort of philosopher. He just cracks me up. Even the characters name (Bodo) is funny.

The ending, in which Lukas's character was forced to do something he considered wrong even though he was doing it for all the right reasons, worked for me as well. I agreed with why he felt he had to what he did, and I understood why he couldn't quite explain it. The message this movie makes is a good and noble one, the scenery (meaning the house) is beautiful, and the acting is the excellent. Watch this movie if you ever get a chance.

9/10.

Fighting fascism

[jotix100 · 8/10 · 3 May 2005]

Lillian Hellman, one of America's most famous women playwrights, was a woman with a mission. Her leftist views were not well regarded at the time in the country. In her memoir, she recounts her trip to the then, Soviet Union, as she was intrigued with the so called successes achieved by that system. "Watch on the Rhine" must have come as a result of those years. The left wing in America, as all over the world had an issue with the rise of fascism, not only in Europe, but in Japan as well.

"Watch on the Rhine" was a play produced on Broadway eight months before the Pearl Harbor attack by the Japanese. In it Ms. Hellman was heralding America's entrance in World War II. The adaptation is credited to Ms. Hellman and Dashiell Hammett, her long time companion. As directed for the screen by Herman Shumlin, the film was well received when it premiered in 1943.

We are introduced to the Muller family, when the film opens. They are crossing the border to the United States from Mexico. They are to continue toward Mrs. Muller's home in Washington, D.C., where her mother, Fanny Farrelly, is a minor celebrity hostess. The Mullers, we realize are fleeing Europe because of the persecution there against the opponents of the advancing totalitarian regime in Germany. In fact, we thought, in a way, the Mullers could have been better justified if they were Jewish, fleeing from a sure extermination.

We find out that Mr. Muller has had a terrible time in his native land, as well as in other places because his outspokenness in denouncing Fascim. Little does he know that he is coming to his mother-in-law's house that is housing one of the worst exponents of that philosophy.

The film offers excellent acting all around. It is a curiosity piece because of Bette Davis' supporting role. Paul Lukas, repeating his Broadway role, is quite convincing as Kurt Muller, the upright man that wants to make a better world for himself and his family. Mr. Lukas does a great job portraying Kurt Muller, repeating the role that made him a stage luminary on Broadway.

The other best performance is by Lucile Watson, who plays Fanny Farrelly, the matriarch of this family. Geraldine Fitzgerald is seen as Marthe de Brancovis, a guest of the Farrellys, married to the contemptible Teck de Brancovis, a Nazi sympathizer, played by George Coulouris. Beulah Bondi, Donald Woods, and the rest of the supporting cast give good performances guided by Mr. Shumlin.

The film should serve as a reminder about the evils of totalitarian rule, no matter where.

Lillian Hellman's World War II View

[theowinthrop · 8/10 · 30 April 2005]

Many of the criticisms on this thread seem to pick a comparison of this film with "The Mortal Storm" or "Casablanca". Everyone is entitled to compare films they choose, but the similarities of "The Mortal Storm" and "Watch On The Rhine" are clearly the problems of refugees threatened by the Nazi juggernaut, while the main comparative point brought out with "Casablanca" is the seeming unjust treatment of Humphrey Bogart in 1943 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science, because they chose Paul Lukas instead for the Best Actor Oscar. It does not strike me as totally wrong. Lukas had a good career in film (both here and in England - he is the villain in "The Lady Vanishes"), and this performance was his best one. Bogart had more great performances in him than Rick Blaine (for instance, he was ignored for Sam Spade in "The Maltese Falcon" and Roy Earle in "High Sierra" two years earlier, both of which were first rate performances, and he would not get an Oscar for his greatest performances as Fred C. Dobbs in "The Treasure Of Sierra Madres", the writer/murder suspect in "In A Lonely Place", and Captain Philip Francis Queeg in "The Caine Mutiny" afterward - he got it for Charley in "The African Queen"). I think that Bogie should have got it for the role of Dobbs, but it did not happen. But Lukas was lucky - he got it on the defining performance of his lesser career. Few can claim that.

To me the film to look at with "Watch On The Rhine" is based on another play/script by Hellman, "The Searching Wind". They both look at America's spirit of isolationism in the 1920s and 1930s. "The Searching Wind" is really looking at the whole inter-war period, while "Watch On The Rhine", set in the years just proceeding our entry into World War II, deals with a few weeks of time. Therefore it is better constructed as a play, and more meaningful for it's impact.

The film has many good performances, led by Lukas as the exhausted but determined anti-Nazi fighter/courier, Davis as his loyal wife (wisely keeping her character as low keyed as possible due to Lukas being the center of the play's activities), Coulouris as the selfish, conniving, but ultimately foolish and ineffective Teck, Lucille Watson as the mother of Davis and Geraldine Fitzgerald (as Coulouris' wiser and sadder and fed up wife), and Kurt Katch, who delivers a devastating critique (as the local embassy's Gestapo chief) about Coulouris and others who would deal with the Nazis. It has dialog with bite in it. And what it says is quite true. It also has moments of near poetry. Witness the scene, towards the end, when Coulouris is left alone with Lukas and Davis, and says, "The New World has left the scene to the Old World". Hellman could write very well at times.

Given the strength of the film script and performances I would rate this film highly among World War II films.

This movie should be shown in our high schools

[zen11 · 5 February 2001]

I saw Watch on the Rhine when I was in my twenties and fell in love with the movie. It came on recently and from the vantage point of my fifties it was like watching the movie for the first time. This time, however, I found the movie interesting from the perspective of the unaware Americans who allow Nazi sympathizers not only to live in their home but to become so familiar as to almost be part of the family. It's entertainment value lies in the fact that in the early 1940's most Americans were unaware of the serious menace Hitler and his evil henchmen presented to the world. The ensuing 'final solution' would have been beyond the imagination of the every day Joe. This movie should be shown in our high schools as an object lesson in history and to correct those who are trying to revise history and deny the more sinister aspects of the Third Reich. Please if you get the opportunity watch this movie because the story dominates the actors, to the benefit of the viewer, and to the credit of those who made it.

Sometimes time and distance are needed to add perspective...

[AlsExGal · 6/10 · 31 August 2019]

... and that goes double for films made in America during WWII. Watch on the Rhine is a good example of the kinds of A list films that got churned out in 1942 and 1943, when the outcome of the war was very much in doubt. Set in 1940, before America entered the war, German born engineer Kurt Mueller (Paul Lukas) who has been heavily involved in the antifascist movement for the last 7 years and his wife (Bette Davis as Sarah) and their three children are on their way to the American home of Sarah's mother in Washington. They enter through Mexico and take the train there.

Now the first half of the film is a tough hard slog, and actually if it wasn't for the tension and drama and sprinkling of humanity in the second half I'd have given the film a 5/10. Bette's mom is about 60, and goes about telling everybody what a looker she was in her day. She snagged a man who turned out to become associate justice of the Supreme Court. They clearly show his name and vital statistics on a building that she enters (1860 - 1919). Now if Fanny Farrelley is 60, that means her husband was twenty years older than her, and that would have been a weird May December wedding for the time. There are other gaffes along the way.

Back to the story. The family arrives in Washington and is heartily greeted by Bette's brother, the wooden Donald Woods as David, and Fanny. Oh, and Fanny's other two houseguests - a broke compulsively gambling Romanian count named Count Teck de Brancovis (George Coulouris), and his very unhappily wedded American wife Mart (Geraldine Fitzgerald). The count is given to gambling with the Germans in their embassy. Being broke, he would like to be able to give them some information for which he could be handsomely paid. But he is a nobody.

Apparently David and Mart have a crush on each other, and there is lots of hand holding and entwined arms and romantic yoohoos that normally would break production code etiquette, but I guess if the possibly slighted spouse is a Fascist sympathizer, which he is, it's perfectly OK??

The first half is just over the top patriotic. The children act like little patriotic robots to the point I expect one of them to blow a fuse or overheat and have a spring or screw come flying out. Bette's character is just a little too enthusiastic about how she has loved being poor with three poor hungry kids for the last seven years. All that matters to her is Kurt's work. And Max Steiner is not blameless in this thing either. When a government building is visited, the score is uber patriotic. Even if they only show a blank wall of the building. When Bette Davis shows up there is "that woman's music" of most Bette films of the era. And when the Count is around there is sinister music, just so you don't forget the count is sinister.

So here we have, in the same house, a German man of the resistance movement who is trying to keep a low profile who the German government would love to catch, and an evil Romanian count who fraternized with the Germans at their embassy who'd sell his own mother to the Germans if they were buying. And he is already getting suspicious of who Kurt really is. Complications ensue.

This is mainly worth watching for probably Lukas' best performance, for seeing that Bette Davis really could give an understated performance if it meant something to her, and a great example of an A list film of the time, considered for many Academy Awards in its day, that now seems like a shrill production.

A Heart Touching, Tear Jerking,...A Real Movie

[bonitachickia234 · 10/10 · 30 June 2007]

Ever since I can remember and I'm only 18 my mother and I have been and continue to watch older movies because well I find them much more rewarding in the long run (but hey don't get me wrong I do love the movies we have today just not as much as I love movies of the 40s and 50s) Anyways, now I have to say the moment I started watching the movie my eyes were glued to the TV. Of course my favorite character was the Grandmother played by Lucile Watson. But I loved the way Betty Davis and her family was portrayed. The children...did not act like children in the slightest. But there is good reason for that, having had to hid and run most of your life, seeing the awful things children saw those days destroyed their innocence. So people saying "oooo i hated how the kids acted...blah blah blah" read between the lines and know they saw things children should not see.

Paul Lukas...dear Paul did an amazing job!!! Now I know many people are mad that he go the Oscar and Bogie didn't but hey they both did amazing jobs so I think it could have gone either way. But Lukas' performance was so amazing that by the end of the movie I was reduced to tears. I loved this movie so much and recommend it to anyone!! :-D

WATCH ON THE RHINE (Herman Schumlin, 1943) ***

[Bunuel1976 · 7/10 · 23 February 2014]

This was another high-profile Oscar-winner (for Paul Lukas as Best Actor) which had eluded me thus far; the film is a topical, i.e. wartime, Warner Bros. drama which served as both a prestige production and a vehicle for their No. 1 female star – Bette Davis. Still, the actress is content here to play second-fiddle to Lukas – much as had been the case with the classic comedy THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER (1941), co-starring Monty Woolley. Perhaps not coincidentally, both were inspired by plays and, consequently, proved verbose and stylistically limited; indeed, the only other film helmed by Broadway director Schumlin was the loose Graham Greene adaptation CONFIDENTIAL AGENT (1945), as it happened, another espionage thriller.

Anyway, WATCH ON THE RHINE (scripted by popular crime novelist Dashiell Hammett – whose THE MALTESE FALCON had been thrice filmed by the studio in the space of a decade! – from the original by his partner Lillian Hellman) also bore a striking resemblance to another recent Warner Bros. effort, CASABLANCA; previewed in December 1942 but opening for general release the following year, it ended up competing with the film under review in some of the top Oscar categories (including Best Picture, Actor and Adapted Screenplay). It is telling, however, that for a movie that underwent major changes during production, CASABLANCA holds together much more firmly than the stolid WATCH ON THE RHINE and, needless to say, also caught the public fancy to a much greater extent – remaining one of the most fondly-remembered Hollywood classics to this day!

The comparisons between the two films involve the chase by Nazis for an underground leader: here, it is anti-Fascist German Lukas (quite fine under the circumstances, if frail-looking for the requirements of the role and evidently struggling with the rich dialogue – invariably delivered in a Hungarian accent he never managed to shake off, like his compatriot Bela Lugosi!) who has come to Washington to stay with the family of wife Davis (who seems perennially on the verge of tears here!); also living there are a rather wasted Geraldine Fitzgerald and her ill-suited and impoverished Romanian aristocrat partner George Coulouris, sympathetic to the Third Reich (represented by Henry Daniell and Kurt Katch) despite having fallen out of favour with them. Indeed, when he suspects Lukas' true identity, he realizes it is a chance for him to once again enter into the Party's good books! Davis' relatives (outspoken society mother Lucile Watson – the other Oscar nominee here – and debonair brother Donald Woods, who carries a flame for Fitzgerald) at first are confused by the intrigue but, when it comes to choose sides, they obviously pick up the cause of the Resistance. While the confrontation scenes between Lukas and Coulouris easily emerge as the film's trump card, the speechifying does make for heavy-going viewing (with the schtick relating to the Lukases' indoctrinated yet wide-eyed children tilting proceeding dangerously towards outright boredom!).

Vagabonds For A Cause

[bkoganbing · 9/10 · 16 January 2009]

Watch On The Rhine started as a Broadway play by Lillian Hellman who wrote the film and saw it open on Broadway at a time when the Soviet Union was still bound to Nazi Germany by that infamous non-aggression pact signed in August of 1939. So much for the fact that Hellman was merely echoing the Communist party line, the line didn't change until a couple of months later. Lillian was actually months ahead of her time with this work.

The play Watch On The Rhine ran from April 1941 to February 1942 for 378 performances and five players came over from Broadway to repeat their roles Frank Wilson as the butler, Eric Roberts as the youngest son, Lucile Watson as the family matriarch and most importantly villain George Coulouris and Paul Lukas.

Lukas pulled an award hat trick in 1943 winning an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and the New York Film Critics for Best Actor. Probably if the Tony Awards had been in existence then he would have won that as well. The Oscar is even more remarkable when you consider who he was up against, Humphrey Bogart for Casablanca, Gary Cooper in For Whom The Bell Tolls, Mickey Rooney in The Human Comedy, and Walter Pidgeon for Madame Curie. Every one of his competitors was a bigger box office movie name than he was. Lukas's nomination is usually the kind the Academy gives to round out a field.

Jack Warner knew that which is why Mady Christians did not repeat her Broadway part and the role of Lukas's wife was given to Bette Davis. Davis took the part not because this was an especially showy role for her, but because she believed in the picture and just wanted to be associated with it. It's the same reason she did The Man Who Came To Dinner, a much lighter play than this one.

Davis is the daughter of a late American Supreme Court Justice who married a German national back in the Weimar days. After many years of being vagabonds on the continent of Europe, Davis Lukas, and their three children come to America which has not yet entered the European War. They're made welcome by Lucile Watson who is thrilled naturally at finally meeting her grandchildren.

The fly in this ointment are some other house guests, a friend of Davis's from bygone days Geraldine Fitzgerald and her husband who is also from Europe, a Rumanian diplomat and aristocrat George Coulouris. Coulouris is a wastrel and a spendthrift and he smells an opportunity for double dealing when he suspects Lukas's anti-fascist background.

His suspicions are quite correct, it's the reason that the family has been the vagabonds they've become. Lukas fought in Spain on the Republican side and was wounded there. His health has not been the same since. His family loyally supports him in whatever decision he makes. Those decisions affect all the other members of the cast.

Adding quite a bit more to the Broadway play including some lovely fascist creatures was Dashiell Hammett who was Lillian Hellman's significant other. Coulouris playing cards at the German embassy was a Hammett creation with such loathsome types as Henry Daniell, Kurt Katch, Clyde Fillmore, Erwin Kalser and Rudolph Anders.

Coulouris is truly one of the most despicable characters ever brought to screen as the no account Runmanian count. He was a metaphor for his own country who embraced the Nazis with gusto and then equally repudiated them without losing a step after Stalingrad.

Lucile Watson was up for Best Supporting Actress in 1943, but lost to Katina Paxinou in For Whom The Bell Tolls. Dashiell Hammett was nominated for best adapted screenplay and the film itself lost for Best Picture to that other anti-fascist classic, Casablanca.

Though it's an item firmly planted in those specific times, Watch On The Rhine still packs a stern anti-fascist message that bears repeating infinitely.

Some Characters You'll Love, Some You'll Love To Hate

[journeygal · 7/10 · 9 August 2019]

The movie held my interest, but there were few things that bugged me. First, the family is German, but only the dad has the slightest accent. I mean, other than his wife Sarah (Bette) pronouncing his name as Khoot instead of Kurt. It also irritated me that the kids were never less than perfectly outfitted--the oldest boy always in a suit. I also did not like that Kurt was double his wife's age. However, the youngest boy was adorable, reminded me of young Danny Bonaduce. I also liked the matriarch, played by Lucille Watson. No nonsense but with a sense of humor. Kurt Muller is an anti-fascist, but with WWII taking a firm foothold in Europe it is no longer safe for the family to be there, so they come to the US to stay with her mother and brother, the well-known and well-to-do Farrellys. For some reason there is a Romanian count and his wife staying there already. The wife is falling for David Farelly (Sarah's brother) while the count quickly figures out that Kurt's whereabouts would be greatly rewarded by the German embassy.

When a leader of the anti-fascists is taken hostage in Germany, Kurt decides he must return to save him, leaving his family in the states while he returns to Europe.

My favorite movie!

[Trout-6 · 10/10 · 29 June 2000]

Probably my all-time favorite movie, a story of selflessness, sacrifice and dedication to a noble cause, but it's not preachy or boring. It just never gets old, despite my having seen it some 15 or more times in the last 25 years. Paul Lukas' performance brings tears to my eyes, and Bette Davis, in one of her very few truly sympathetic roles, is a delight. The kids are, as grandma says, more like "dressed-up midgets" than children, but that only makes them more fun to watch. And the mother's slow awakening to what's happening in the world and under her own roof is believable and startling. If I had a dozen thumbs, they'd all be "up" for this movie.

fine

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 30 August 2019]

It's early in WWII with Germany's rapid conquest of western Europe. German engineer Kurt Muller (Paul Lukas) and his American wife Sara (Bette Davis) cross the border from Mexico into the US with their three children. They travel to Washington to stay with her brother David Farrelly (Donald Woods) and their mother Fanny (Lucile Watson). The anti-fascist Kurt had fought for the Republicans in Spain and is a friend of the underground railroad. There is opportunistic houseguest, Romanian Count Teck de Brancovis (George Coulouris), who plays with the Nazis and running out of money.

It probably worked well as a wartime propaganda. It paints a compelling story of good versus evil. Lukas is an older gentleman actor. Bette Davis is restrained as the wife and mother although she is the most dramatic at various times bordering on overacting. There is plenty of sleaze coming off of Coulouris. He has probably the most interesting performance as the villain which happens a lot. Overall, it's fine especially for its purpose.

The makers of propaganda should take note

[antimatter33 · 9/10 · 25 May 2019]

The early period of American involvement in WW-2 was peppered by films, many of them unwatchable these days, that were explicit propaganda. All of them taken together could not touch this gripping account of a man determined to do his part to fight back in the way that fate has chosen for him. Paul Lukas gives a performance worthy of his Oscar as an underground anti-Fascist tortured by his duty to his movement. He has a job to do, and he is going to do it. Of course it takes such men of courage and integrity to beat back evil, but we should not kid ourselves that the job is without personal consequences, even for those who succeed. I always felt bad for my father, who served on a B-17 in the war and shot at Germans, and without doubt, being a crack shot, hit some of them. That he had taken lives with his own hands was something he always found hard to live with. How much more grave is the responsibility to choose when you have the lives of your wife and children to consider - when you are safe in foreign land, when you could easily find other ways to carry on the struggle, but when you know that your particular skill and experience is needed in a very particular way that is incompatible with your continued well-being? Lukas embodies all this in a way that literally gave me goose bumps. The truth is always so much more effective than jingoism. This film is the truth. It bears comparison with Casablanca - the nonchalant heroism of Viktor Laszlo seems rather self-important next to the tortured will of Kurt Muller.

The Dashiell Hammett script is wonderful and deserved an award of its own. The supporting players all do a fine job. George Coulouris as the unctuous and self-serving Count gives a performance of great and icy villainy. What a superb film!

Decent, although a tad slow

[zetes · 7/10 · 4 March 2012]

Based on a Lillian Hellman play (adapted by Dashiell Hammett), this film concerns Paul Lukas and wife Bette Davis coming to live with Davis' mother (Lucile Watson) in Washington, D.C. after running away from the trouble in Europe (the film is set in 1940). Watson is fond of houseguests, and one of them, George Coulouris, is a Romanian with Nazi sympathies. Coulouris soon discovers Lukas' true identity as a fighter with the resistance, which makes trouble. This movie is okay. It builds a bit too slowly and goes on a bit too long. When it gets to the good stuff, though, it is quite good. Davis in particular is in fine form. Lukas won an Oscar. Probably undeserved, as he beat out Bogie in Casablanca, but he's got a few great scenes. Hated Watson, who was also nominated. She's annoying. Also despised Lukas' little robo-children. Two boys and a girl - the girl doesn't say a single word in the film, I do believe, but the two boys rattle on and on and are God awful actors, particularly the younger one, Eric Roberts (not...THAT Eric Roberts! I don't think...). The character's name is Bodo, and if that isn't enough to make you want to punch him in the face, wait until he speaks!

A disappointment

[richard-1787 · 5/10 · 13 January 2009]

This is a movie with a noble heart and fine actors. Unfortunately, it is also a movie with a stiff and leaden script, painfully unnatural and not well directed. It is impossible not to feel for Paul Lukas' character, just as it is impossible not to feel for Paul Heinried's character in Casablanca, made the same year and dealing with similar issues. But whereas the script in Casablanca, one of that movie's many wonders, makes real people of its characters, the script in this movie fails miserably in that respect, as in others.

If you have never seen this movie, watch it. But it could have been so much better with a better script.

-----------------------

I watched this movie again tonight, 9 years after I wrote my review above. In rereading that, I find the tone is perhaps too harsh, but I do not regret my condemnation of the movie's script. The characters are very noble indeed, but they remain ideological figures rather than human beings. Perhaps the best illustration of that is seen by a comparison of Paul Luckas' Kurt with Victor Lazlo in *Casablanca*. Lazlo, too, is self-sacrificing and noble, but he is allowed to be more human, and therefore more sympathetic, than Luckas' resistance fighter. The latter's final speech is very moving, but he still seems a cold fish.

There are also problems of construction. Martha and David are never really woven into the main story.

Again, the movie is worth watching. It must have been very powerful in 1943, when it was released, and resistance fighters were desperately trying to counter a successful Hitler in Europe. But the characters are too two-dimensional to make this a truly moving film

Rich and Moving

[inhonoredglory · 2 October 2011]

What a truly, truly rich, moving experience. I love those films made in the war years, as they mean so much and teach so much and have so much more depth and meaning. This movie is no exception. I can see why Bette Davis took the role "for its importance." It teaches so much to the American people of its time - and even now - how we don't really know what it means to be a European in an Old World so often used to the kinds of conflict that created World War II.

The movie also strikingly doesn't feel like propaganda, even though the message was clearly to move its audience into action (aren't all worthwhile films aimed at personal change?). It presented a very enlightening, moving perspective on both the German menace and the Underground protagonists. Muller (Paul Lukas) explains how we will one day feel pity for those Germans who just "follow orders" and are really just fools, like De Brancovis (George Coulouris). And the perspective that Muller and the Underground may indeed be like the evil they fight - to see Muller admit he was bad. Situations like this are not black and white.

The acting in this are also marvelous. Paul Lukas is an inspiration to watch. The children are so very precious, as is Lucile Watson's character.

After seeing this, my sister wanted to learn more about WWII, the Underground, and the Holocaust. Through it, she's had the experience I've had so long ago.

In that time, I see character, selflessness, and purpose greater than self. I love it so, and I am saddened by the blatant selfishness that defines today's society. Movies like this inspire me and make me see continually that ideals and convictions can be attained and are indeed beautiful.

I guess it's just me.

[miles_to_go_before · 7/10 · 17 January 2009]

Loved the movie. I even liked most of the actors in it. But, for me Ms. Davis' very poor attempt at an accent, and her stiff acting really makes an otherwise compelling movie very hard to watch. Seriously if any other modern actor played the same role with the same style as Ms. Davis they would be laughed off the screen.

I really think she 'phoned this one in'. Now if it had Myrna Loy or Ingrid Bergman playing the part of the wife I would have enjoyed it much more.

I guess I just don't 'get' Bette Davis. I've always thought of her as an actor that 'plays herself' no matter what role she's in. The possible exception is Now Voyager.

I'm sure many of the other reviewers will explain in careful (and I hope civil) detail how I am totally wrong on this. But, I'll continue to watch the movies she's in because I like the stories/writing/supporting casts, but, I'll always be thinking, of different actresses that could have done a better job.

Machts gut, Papa

[blanche-2 · 10/10 · 19 June 2006]

An American woman, her European husband and children return to her mother's home in "Watch on the Rhine," a 1943 film based on the play by Lillian Hellman, and starring Paul Lukas (whom I believe is repeating his stage role here), Bette Davis, Lucile Watson, George Coulouris, Geraldine Fitzgerald, and Donald Woods. An anti-Fascist, a worker in the underground movement, many times injured, and wanted by the Nazis, Kurt Muller (Lukas) is in need of a long vacation on the estate of his wealthy mother-in-law. But he finds out that there is truly no escape as one of the houseguests (Coulouris) is suspicious as to his true identity and more than willing to sell him out.

Great performances abound in this film, written very much to put forth Lillian Hellman's liberal point of view. It was certainly a powerful propaganda vehicle at the time it was released, as the evils of war and what was happening to people in other countries reach into safe American homes. The movie's big controversy today is that Paul Lukas won an Oscar over Humphrey Bogart in "Casablanca." Humphrey Bogart was a wonderful screen presence and a fabulous Rick, but Lukas is transcendent as Kurt. The monologue he has about the need to kill is gut-wrenching, just to mention one scene.

Though this isn't what one thinks of as a Bette Davis movie, she gives a masterful performance here as Kurt's loyal and loving wife, Sara. Her acting tugs at the heart, and the love scenes between Kurt and Sara are beautiful and tender.

The last half hour of the film had me in tears with the honesty of the emotions. Lillian Hellman is not everyone's cup of tea, but unlike "The Little Foxes," she has written some truly sympathetic, wonderful characters and a fine story given A casting and production values by Warner Brothers. Highly recommended.

very good but a bit dated and tedious at times

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 23 June 2006]

I think this movie was probably a lot more powerful when it first debuted in 1943, though nowadays it seems a bit too preachy and static to elevate it to greatness. The film is set in 1940--just before the entry of the US into the war. Paul Lukas plays the very earnest and decent head of his family. He's a German who has spent seven years fighting the Nazis and avoiding capture. Bette Davis is his very understanding and long-suffering wife who has managed to educate and raise the children without him from time to time. As the film begins, they are crossing the border from Mexico to the USA and for the first time in years, they are going to relax and stop running.

The problem for me was that the family was too perfect and too decent--making them seem like obvious positive propaganda instead of a real family suffering through real problems. While this had a very noble goal at the time, it just seems phony today. In particular, the incredibly odd and extremely scripted dialog used by the children just didn't ring true. It sounded more like anti-Fascism speeches than the voices of real children. They were as a result extremely annoying--particularly the littlest one who came off, at times, as a brat. About the only ones who sounded real were Bette Davis and her extended American family as well as the scumbag Romanian living with them (though he had no discernible accent).

It's really tough to believe that the ultra-famous Dashiel Hammett wrote this dialog, as it just doesn't sound true to life. The story was based on the play by his lover, Lillian Hellman. And, the basic story idea and plot is good,...but the dialog is just bad at times. Overall, an interesting curio and a film with some excellent moments,...but that's really about all.

A cautionary tale

[jjnxn-1 · 10/10 · 30 April 2013]

A cautionary tale about the insidiousness of evil and the dangers of complacency this film is as timely as ever. Bette is very subdued here as befits her character and so when she is moved to action it is all the more involving. Lukas is excellent recreating his stage role, as do all the adult actors here excepting Bette and Geraldine Fitzgerald, as a man fiercely committed to his cause. The wonderful Lucile Watson makes every second she's on screen count as the strong-minded Fanny Farrelly, while always good this is probably her best on screen work. A compelling film, it is at times verbose but what is being said is worthwhile so that isn't really a debit.

I Do What Must Be Done

[utgard14 · 7/10 · 10 December 2013]

Kurt and Sara Muller (Paul Lukas, Bette Davis) and their three children flee Nazi Germany to live with Sara's family in Washington, D.C. Little do they know Sara's family already has two guests, Rumanian count Teck de Brancovis and his American wife Marthe (George Coulouris, Geraldine Fitzgerald). Teck is a slimy weasel who is trying to curry favor with the Nazi's. There's also a subplot about Marthe falling in love with Sara's brother David (Donald Woods).

This is a touching, thoughtful, drama with a little added suspense. It has some fine acting (Lukas won an Oscar) and a good script written by Dashiell Hammett based on the play by Lillian Hellman. One of the main complaints among the reviews I've read is that the children act and talk like adults, not like real children. This is addressed in the film as Sara's mother even asks them if they are "children or dressed-up midgets." The kids were supposed to be intelligent and mature, both because of how they had been raised as well as the environment they had grown up in, with politics and causes taking the place of a normal childhood. So I really don't see why this is a point of complaint for so many. They weren't trying to pass the kids off as your average children. Anyway, it's a good movie with WW2 themes and strong performances from all. Lukas and Davis are especially good.

Rises above the typical war film...and takes place in America

[vincentlynch-moonoi · 8/10 · 23 February 2012]

For all these years I have avoided watching this film because, although it had one feature I really like (Bette Davis), it appeared to about WWII along the Rhine River...and I usually detest war movies. So, last evening, I was quite delighted to learn that the movie was completely different than I had expected, and although it was about WWII and Nazis, it takes place primarily in Virginia (or is it Maryland).

In 1940, before the U.S. had gotten into WWII (although the film was produced in 1943, when the end of the war was approaching) German-born engineer Paul Lukas, his American wife Bette Davis, and their 3 children Joshua cross from Mexico into the United States to visit (or live with) Davis' mother in suburban Washington. For 17 years, the Lukas/Davis family has lived in Europe, with Lukas participating in anti-Fascist activities.

Will they live in peace in America? Or will Lukas continue his anti-Nazi activities through trips abroad? Of will a house guest who secretly favors the Nazi turn Lukas in for money from the Nazis. Well, the house guest won't do that, because ultimately Lukas shots him to death! At the close of the movie, one of Davis' sons announces that is planning to return to war-time Europe to find his father (Lukas). Davis, though heartbroken agrees to be brave when that time comes.

Davis is excellent here, perhaps all the more so because she is playing against type. In fact, this may be one of her better roles. Lukas, an actor from Austria-Hungary, did win the Oscar for Best Actor, and he turns in a decidedly different performance than would have been given by an American actor. Lucile Watson, as the mother, was excellent here...as she always was. Geraldine Fitzgerald turns in a good performance, as does Donald Woods as the son. George Coulouris is appropriately loathsome as the evil house guest. The one performance that disappointed me was from a character actress that I have the highest respect for -- the wonderful Beulah Bondi. Unfortunately, here she plays a French great aunt, and it just seems an unnatural role for her.

I give this film high marks. It rises above typical war-time movie stories, and is a superb drama. This may very well be one for your DVD shelf...a war story with a difference.

Preachy writing & uneven acting mar what could have been an interesting melodrama

[MiloMindbender · 6/10 · 6 December 2009]

All the dialog in this movie is written as if it were a sermon. Not only is the movie too preachy, but the acting is either too stiff (the children) or too hysterical (Bette Davis, in one of her weaker performances). Another weakness of the movie is that all the dialog revolves around generalities rather than specifics. Fascism and Nazis are bad! Maybe in 1943 this was groundbreaking, but today the simplemindedness of the writing makes this a story of caricatures, rather than a story of real people. The plot of the movie could have survived if this had been filmed as a film noir with unknowns in the leads instead of a melodrama for actors pining to win an Oscar.

Outwitting the Nazi Foxes.

[mark.waltz · 9/10 · 24 August 2013]

Once again, Lillian Hellman takes on the fight against Fascism as she did with the analytical "The Little Foxes". Here, it is modern day Washington D.C. and German born Nazi hater Paul Lukas comes to the capitol on a mission while visiting his American wife's family. He is recognized by a traitorous Nazi sympathizer, calling into question his own values and bringing on a sacrifice that was necessary during the second world war. Bette Davis takes second fiddle to Lukas's showier lead, realizing how important this would be not only to her career but to the war as well. Propaganda, certainly, but well-written, definitely.

The villain of the story is George Coulouris, playing both sides against the middle as European Count with only one goal in mind: cash. He's the type of sleaze who would sell out his own mother in order to grab on to the green, and also the type that the Nazis would kill as soon as they got all of the information he possessed. He's there as a guest, married to Geraldind Fitzgerald who obviously loves Davis's brother. Lucille Watson, as Davis's regal mother, takes her lovable character through many different levels: demanding, bossy, opinionated, slightly meddlesome, cheery, worried, shocked and finally contrite. But never is she any less than practically perfect, in performance and character. In a smaller role, Beaulah Bondi is Watson's wise housekeeper who is amused by Davis's feisty younger son who declares to Watson's surprise, "Yes, I am not handsome."

War is never just on the battlefield, in the skies or on water. It is in the cities where all seems peaceful, in the country where hate grows like corn, and especially in the heart where it expands like a tumor. All it takes is one person like Coulouris to start the thread of intolerance and fascism spreads like plague. That's where Lukas must battle his own moral structure, coming to terms with the difference between being a pacifist and ridding the world of evil, whether it be one man or millions. The script leaves the story open, as was appropriate, as the theme states that the plot line of the world will never be completed as long as evil is allowed to roam the earth.

Noble causes can make great cinema-- but not here

[MissSimonetta · 6/10 · 11 March 2020]

I didn't despise WATCH ON THE RHINE as much as the other low reviews on here. It's sporadically interesting-I admit I went "OH MY GOD" aloud when Paul Lukas pulled a gun on the Nazi blackmailer, though this might have been because after over an hour of talk, talk, talk, I was shocked that something was actually happening on the screen.

The actors-with the exception of the creepy robotic kids-are generally good, even if Davis was miscast as the supportive wife. However, the characters are rather dull, either pure good or evil without much else to make them interesting. Lukas's rebel never experiences much internal conflict beyond guilt over how his family has had to rough it with him as he engages in underground anti-fascist activity. His wife and children are supportive,never bitter or tempted for more than seconds. There's a reason CASABLANCA has endured beyond its original purpose as allied propaganda: the characters possess ambiguities and flaws which make them interesting. They're heroic anti-fascists who don't need to talk the audience's ears off with melodramatic lecturing to make a point.

Visually,the film is rather static and "stagey," which actually is not a problem when the drama portrayed within those static shots is compelling. Unfortunately,unless you're examining it as a museum piece, this movie isn't that compelling.

There IS a good film on this topic, but it ain't this one

[semi-buff · 5/10 · 17 January 2005]

The most enjoyable scene in this film is the one which has the least plot value: grandmother and her friend in the taxi. That was a delight. Too bad it came so early in the film; something like it was sorely needed after the halfway point to keep us from contemplating suicide. Oh, this film is T-E-D-I-O-U-S! Watson and especially Lukas are wonderful; the story is important; the message is clear. But I agree with everyone else--what a horrible way to get it across! And the children. Were any three kids ever less kid-like?! My own review would itself be less tedious if not for IMDb's 10-line-minimum requirement; time to end that silliness, in my opinion. For an involving, well-written, historically fascinating anti-isolationist film, do not miss The Mortal Storm (1940).