Man Hunt **** (1941, Walter Pidgeon, Joan Bennett, George Sanders, John Carradine, Roddy McDowall, Ludwig Stossel, Heather Thatcher) – Classic Movie Review 2807

Fritz Lang’s riveting 1941 wartime thriller Man Hunt finds Walter Pidgeon well cast as an English big game hunter who misses his chance to kill Adolf Hitler.

Director Fritz Lang’s riveting 1941 American wartime thriller version of the distinctly odd, certainly very quirky 1939 Geoffrey Household novel Rogue Male finds Walter Pidgeon well cast as Captain Alan Thorndike, an English big game hunter who misses his chance to kill Adolf Hitler.

While taking a holiday in Bavaria, Thorndike has Hitler in his gun sight, but is caught, tortured and left for dead by the Gestapo. Thorndike manages to get away and escape to London – but he is only one step ahead of the Nazis.

Alas, writer Dudley Nichols drops most of Household’s fascinating detail about hiding out in the country and instead brings on Hollywood romance with Joan Bennett as Jerry Stokes, a prostitute to whom the hero turns for help. But George Sanders and John Carradine are splendidly sinister as Nazis and capture the right flavour of the novel.

As with his later 1944 film of Graham Greene’s Ministry of Fear, Lang again shows that he has no feeling nor care for English attitudes and atmosphere, or much respect for English literature. That’s not particularly good, though it is very Hollywood, but movie-wise, it really doesn’t matter too much. This is still a riveting movie. And Lang’s anti-Nazi fervour was timely and is well served.

Also in the cast are Roddy McDowall, Ludwig Stossel, Heather Thatcher, Frederick Worlock, Roger Imhof, Charles Bennett, Frank Benson, Walter Bonn, Sven Hugo Borg, Egon Brecher, Herbert Evans, William Haade, Bobbie Hale, Holmes Herbert, Olaf Hytten, Hans Joby, Eily Maylon, Lester Matthews, Lucien Prival, Otto Reichow, John Rogers and Frederick Vodeling.

It was Roddy McDowall’s first Hollywood film after escaping the London Blitz.

Lang had fled Nazi Germany into American exile in 1933 and this was the first of his four anti-Nazi films, followed by Ministry of Fear, Hangmen Also Die!, and Cloak and Dagger.

Man Hunt was one of many 1941 pro-British American films that helped influence the US public to sympathise with the British in World War Two. However, this caused trouble in the neutral United States with the Hays Office, with 20th Century-Fox studio boss Darryl F Zanuck and with American isolationists and Nazi sympathisers.

It was the first war film to attract the attention of the Hays Office’s Joseph Breen, who called it a ‘hate film’. He thought the script showed all Germans as evil, unlike films that depicted both good Germans as well as evil Nazis. Breen said the Germans should not be characterised as being so brutal and would pass the film only if it indicated brutality rather than showed it. So Thorndike’s torture is not shown just made apparent.

Zanuck worried about Lang’s anti-Nazi feeling and banned him from the editing room, but Lang and his associate Gene Fowler Jr secretly edited the film without Zanuck’s approval.

Isolationists attacked such films as this and Lady Hamilton [That Hamilton Woman] (1941) as pro-British propaganda to change American public opinion about going to war.

An instrumental version of ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’ by Eric Maschwitz, Manning Sherwin and Jack Strachey is a recurring romantic theme. The recurring theme for the Nazis is composed by musical director Alfred Newman.

It was remade with Peter O’Toole under the original title of Rogue Male in 1976.

The cast are Walter Pidgeon as Captain Thorndike, Joan Bennett as Jerry, George Sanders as Quive-Smith, John Carradine as Mr. Jones, Roddy McDowall as Vaner, Ludwig Stössel as the doctor, Heather Thatcher as Lady Risborough, Frederick Worlock as Lord Risborough, Roger Imhof as Captain Jensen, Egon Brecher as the jeweller, Lester Matthews as the major, Holmes Herbert as Saul Farnsworthy, Eily Malyon as postmistress, Arno Frey as police lieutenant, Frederick Vogeding as ambassador, Wilhelm von Brincken as harbour police chief, Cyril Delevanti as cab driver, Olaf Hytten as Saul’s law clerk Piel, Charles Bennett, Frank Benson, Walter Bonn, Sven Hugo Borg, Herbert Evans, William Haade, Bobbie Hale, Holmes Herbert, Olaf Hytten, Hans Joby, Lester Matthews, Lucien Prival, Otto Reichow, John Rogers and Frederick Vodeling.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2807

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