Hitler’s Madman [Hitler’s Hangman] *** (1943, Patricia Morison, John Carradine, Alan Curtis) – Classic Movie Review 6381

Director Douglas Sirk’s 1943 wartime drama was suggested as a World War Two moral-boosting movie by Eleanor Roosevelt, the US First Lady (1933-45), and is based on a tragic real story, though slightly fictionalized.

It is a fascinating movie for its subject matter, and remarkable and significant for its time of making. But it never really rings entirely quite true, since Sirk directs in rather melodramatic fashion and elicits some phoney-feeling performances from his cast. However its sincerity and spirit are not in any doubt.

John Carradine, snarling impressively, is a startling villain, playing the sadistic Nazi, SS commander Reinhardt Heydrich, aka ‘The Hangman’, whose assassination by Czech partisans doomed the Czech village of Lidice to annihilation in the Nazi reprisals ordered by Heinrich Himmler.

It also stars Patricia Morison as glamorous schoolteacher Jarmilla Hanka, John Carradine, Alan Curtis as Czech soldier Karel Vavra, Howard Freeman (as Heinrich Himmler), Ralph Morgan, Ludwig Stossel (as the Burgomaster), Edgar Kennedy and Jimmy Conlon.

Also in the cast are Blanche Yurka, Al Shean, Victor Killian, Lester Dorr, Leatrice Joy Gilbert, John Merton, Dennis Moore, Victor Kilian, Tully Marshall, Betty Jaynes and Natalie Draper.

Ava Gardner has a walkon as a student.

It is written by Peretz Hirschbein, Melvin Levy, Doris Malloy and Edgar G Ulmer, based on the novel Hangman’s Village by Bart Lytton and the story by Albrecht Joseph and Emil Ludwig.

It is shot in black and white by Jack Greenhalgh and Eugen Schüfftan, produced by Seymour Nebenzal, and scored by Karl Hajos, Eric Zeisl, Arthur Morton and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962): ‘A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it’s in hot water.’

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6381

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