Man Hunt **** (1941, Walter Pidgeon, Joan Bennett, George Sanders, John Carradine, Roddy McDowall, Ludwig Stossel, Heather Thatcher) – Classic Movie Review 2,807

Fritz Lang’s riveting 1941 wartime thriller film Man Hunt stars Walter Pidgeon as an English big game hunter who misses his chance to kill Adolf Hitler. It also stars Joan Bennett, George Sanders and John Carradine.

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 on July 29, 1939, 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, operating freely about town, and of the English, ready to extradite any of their nationals to Germany without any defence.

Thorndike hides in the apartment of a young woman named Jerry Stokes (Joan Bennett), who lends him money to reach his important diplomat brother Lord Risborough (Frederick Worlock), but he tells him the British government will extradite him if he is found, thanks to their doctrine of appeasement.

it is quite a story. Alas, writer Dudley Nichols drops most of Household’s fascinating detail about hiding out in the country and instead brings on Hollywood-style romance with Joan Bennett as Jerry Stokes, the prostitute to whom the hero turns for help. Thorndike insists Jerry isn’t a prostitute, saying she is ‘straight and shiny’ like the cheap chromium arrow hatpin she gets Thorndike to buy her. Mmm.

Jerry is in love. Joan Bennett handles it well, but it is all too Hollywood and none too Geoffrey Household. But George Sanders (as hunter Major Quive-Smith) and John Carradine (as German agent Mr Jones) 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.

American 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.

Running time: 105 minutes.

It was remade with Peter O’Toole under the original title of Rogue Male in 1976, finally making Geoffrey Household a household name, in the UK at least.

Joan Bennett also stars in Lang’s films The Woman in the Window (1944), and Scarlet Street  (1945). Her three films with Lang are highlights of her career.

The cast

The cast are Walter Pidgeon as Captain Thorndike, Joan Bennett as Jerry Stokes, George Sanders as Major 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.

Man Hunt is directed by Fritz Lang, runs 105 minutes, is made and released by 20th Century Fox, is written by Dudley Nichols and Lamar Trotti, is shot in black and white by Arthur C Miller, is produced by Kenneth MacGowan, and is scored by Alfred Newman.

Release date: June 13, 1941.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2,807

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com