None Shall Escape

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Movie
Original title None Shall Escape
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1944
length 85 minutes
Rod
Director André De Toth
script Lester Cole
production Samuel Bischoff for Columbia Pictures
music Ernst Toch ,
Music Director: Morris Stoloff
camera Lee Garmes
cut Charles Nelson
occupation

None Shall Escape (on German about escape Let no one ) is an American war film drama by Andre De Toth from the year 1944. The main roles are with Marsha Hunt , Alexander Knox and Henry Travers occupied.

The original story goes back to Alfred Neumann and Joseph Than , who were nominated for an Oscar in the “Best Original Story” category.

action

Wilhelm Grimm, a high-ranking member of the NSDAP , is charged with crimes against humanity before the International Court of Justice. After Grimm neither acknowledged the court nor found himself guilty, the first witness, Father Warecki, was called to the stand.

The Reverend remembers the spring of 1919 shortly after the end of the First World War . In his small Polish village, the news that Poland should become a republic is welcomed with joy by the villagers. When Grimm, who fought on the German side, returns from the war, he is graciously welcomed and offered his previous job as a teacher again. His experiences in the war, which also cost him a leg, made Grimm bitter and cynical. He regards the German defeat as a disgrace that he does not want to accept. Marja Paeierkowski, Grimm's fiancée and fellow teacher, tries to comfort him, but gets to feel his bitterness that he has been sent to what he says is a small hillbilly village, whose inhabitants he mocked as idiots from the village. Marja is frightened by his spite and causes her to cancel the planned wedding at short notice and go to Warsaw. Grimm tells himself that Marja only left him because of his missing leg and changes even more to the disadvantage, especially since Jan Stys, a student, mocks him for not being suitable for a Polish woman.

Three months have passed when Marja returned because she decided to marry Grimm after all, believing that this would make him again who she had once fallen in love with. She's just coming back when Jan Stys is accused of violating his girlfriend Anna Oremski. Marja seeks a conversation with the traumatized woman, who confides in her that she was raped by Grimm. That same night Anna seeks suicide in the water. An angry crowd then goes to Grimm's house, including Jan, who injured Grimm's eye so badly with a stone that he lost it. While Marja is about to start a new life in Warsaw, Grimm is released from prison for lack of evidence and asks Father Warecki for a loan so that he can return to Germany. The priest strongly advises him to give up his hatred.

Back in the courtroom, the next witness is called, Grimm's brother Karl. He remembers the year 1923, when Germany was in upheaval. He was living with his family in Munich when his brother, whom he had not seen for five years, knocked on his door. Karl gives Wilhelm shelter in his house. However, when he was enthusiastic about Adolf Hitler and his speeches, Karl Grimm, a journalist, did not understand. After the NSDAP was gaining ground, Wilhelm Grimm also climbed higher and higher in its ranks, with an artificial leg and a glass eye helping him. After the Nazis caused suspicion and unrest in Germany, their leader was arrested. When the police are also looking for Wilhelm Grimm, he gives his nephew Willie his Nazi badge and disappears.

Ten years later, the Nazis have the upper hand. In order to avoid the oppression by them, Karl decides to move his and his family's residence to Vienna. The evening before they leave, he learns that his brother Wilhelm is to be appointed Deputy Minister of Education during a Nazi honorary banquet. Karl goes there to inform his brother of his plans and to exhort him to join them. He also reveals his plan to publish an article that will reveal the truth about the fire in the Reichstag once he arrives in Vienna. That same evening, Grimm, who heads a column of soldiers, arrests his brother, who is then sent to a concentration camp . He leads his nephew Willie to the Hitler Youth .

Back at the trial, it is now Marja's turn to make her statement. She remembers the month of September 1939, shortly after Poland was defeated by the Nazis. After she lost her husband in the war, she returned to her hometown with her daughter Janina. However, the new Nazi commander and his men soon moved into the city. He is, of all people, Wilhelm Grimm. With him is Willie, who is now a lieutenant. Grimm is determined to punish the entire village. First of all, the citizens who are hungry themselves have to hand over their poor food to the German army. Next, Grimm visits Marja's school class and orders the children to burn their Polish books. Then Marja learns that Grimm is planning to have Jan arrested and warns him. That night, Jan, seriously injured while defending his country, makes a passionate plea for the Polish resistance and then collapses. Marja and her daughter hide him in the basement and look after him.

The atrocities of the Nazis increase more and more, so the boys of the village are sent to a labor camp and the girls are locked up in brothels for the pleasure of the officers. When Grimm then orders horses to be placed in the Jewish synagogue, Marja appeals in vain to his humanity. When Marja notices that Willie shows a special interest in her daughter, she forbids him to go around. Grimm has since ordered that the Jews should be driven to the camps in cattle trucks for deportation. Rabbi David Levin turns to the Reverend and asks for help. When the frightened victims are rounded up, the rabbi tells them to resist. They are ruthlessly gunned down by the Nazis, as is David Levin.

When Willie later sneaks into the parish church, he finds Marja and Janina and Jan in the vaulted cellar. Marja approaches him without fear, but he turns away and leaves. The young man increasingly begins to feel with the villagers what is reported to Grimm. His punishment culminates in forcing Janina into the brothel. In vain, Willie asks his uncle to spare the young woman. Even the service that is held for Janina, who would rather have killed herself than do the will of the officers, Grimm tries to prevent. When Willie also wants to go to church, his uncle prevents him. Willie hurls his contempt at Grimm, also for betraying his father and mother, and throws away the Nazi cross in order to then enter the church. When he kneels down in prayer, his uncle kneels him down from behind.

Back in the present, Grimm continues to refuse to recognize the authority of the court and insists that Germany will be resurrected. The judge then appeals to the men and women of the United Nations to pass the final judgment on Grimm's guilt.

production

Production notes, cast

According to a message in the New York Herald Tribune , producer Sam Bischoff came up with the idea of ​​making a movie about war crimes after hearing that President Franklin D. Roosevelt had declared that the United Nations was the Nazi leaders responsible for the atrocities of war Want to take responsibility. The script was then submitted to the US State Department to determine that the atrocities depicted in the film corresponded to those of the Nazis . According to another piece of news in the aforementioned newspaper, director André De Toth was filming in Hungary when the Nazis invaded Poland.

Filming lasted from August 31 to October 26, 1943. None Shall Escape was De Toth's second film for Columbia Pictures . He believed in the project, but although he liked the basic story of Alfred Neumann and Joseph Than, he felt that the script was weak in characterization. Then the experienced screenwriter Lester Cole was brought in.

De Toth clashed with studio boss Harry Cohn several times. Among other things, he infuriated Cohn when he refused to cast Paul Lukas in the lead role and instead insisted on the lesser-known Canadian actor Alexander Knox, who impressed him in the Broadway production of Chekhov's Three Sisters . Paul Lukas had recently achieved great success in the drama Watch on the Rhine , a film with a similar theme.

Marsha Hunt was loaned to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for the production.

publication

The film is heralded as the “most prophetic picture of our time”, and so it says in the prologue to the opening credits: “The time of this story is the future. The war is over. As promised, the criminals of this war were brought to justice on the scenes of their crimes. Indeed, we were promised - no one should escape . "

The film was first released in the United States on February 3, 1944, and it opened in the United Kingdom in 1944. It was first seen in Mexico on November 11, 1944 and in Portugal on December 1, 1945. It was published in Sweden in March 1946 and in Finland in June 1946. It was also published in Greece and Italy. The American working titles were: Lebensraum as well as The Day Will Come (The day will come) and After the Night (After the night) .

In the USA, the film was shown again from January 10-22, 1998 as part of the 7th Annual New York Jewish Film Festival.

reception

criticism

The reviews when the film came out were mixed. For example, Bosley Crowther of the New York Times complained that the film said nothing about the Nazis that had not already been said, but came across as bombastic. Alexander Knox plays this satanic Nazi in a nervous, intrusive style that exudes a special morbidity, and Marsha Hunt, Henry Travers and Frank Jacquet are right in the middle of it as Polish villagers.

Closer to the action was the motion picture industry magazine The Hollywood Reporter , which found that De Toth's treatment of the subject, his handling of the actors, and his incredible ability to create variations on routine scenes were testament to his artful direction and talent as a director. His work carries a fresh touch of unbridled daring in some respects, but on the other hand it is also about techniques that we have known for a long time, but which we often forget to apply.

At Cin Eater Devouring Classic Film , it was said that Alexander Knox, a great actor, was unfortunately wrongly forgotten. It is a shame that neither his film Wilson nor None Shall Escape are widespread. None Shall Escape , despite its extraordinary relevance, never saw the light of day, with the exception of a rare appearance at TCM . There is no doubt that it is a difficult film that is simply too much to say about.

Marco Antonio Núñez stated in his treatise on André De Toth and his film that he had a prophetic streak, as he emphasized the need to judge those responsible for the greatest slaughter in human history at the end of the conflict. After all, the film was shot at a time when the extent of the crime was not yet fully known, so the boldness of the approach is even greater.

Dennis Schwartz, Ozus World Movie Reviews , also spoke of an intelligent, harsh, prophetic, psychological war drama. The dark melodrama reflects the serious situation at the time, which the tightly realistic script by Lester Cole (later on the HUAC list ), Joseph Than and Alfred Neumann, makes clear by symbolically assuming the guilt of the demonized Nazis for all Nazis . The most disturbing moment in the film is when a group of Jews is killed by the Nazi Gestapo. The most disappointing moment was the sermon at the end of the film, in which the world was asked to accept the UN as the place to end future wars. Time has shown how it (does not) work.

Derek Winnert wrote that this was an important and courageous film that was made in Hollywood in 1944, not as brilliant or devastating as Roberto Rossellini's later film Germany in the year zero from 1948, but full of honest disgust and despair at the evil that humans have could do to his fellow men. The original story rightly received an Oscar nomination. The performance of the actors was excellent all round, especially that of Knox, as well as Lee Garmes' black and white camera.

In The Movie Scene it says that this is one of those films that are extraordinary, brilliantly played well done wonderfully written and and much better than most propaganda films that were shot during the Second World War. However, it is a dark story that is difficult to digest and so hard that you probably don't want to see it a second time, even though the film is very good.

Sylvie Pierre judged the film for Senses of Cinema in May 2003, saying it was one of the answers to a crime that is beyond the human imagination. The film is fortunate enough to be able to fall back on a script of rare intelligence. It says something about the fact that, under certain historical conditions and with a correspondingly endowed nature, man can commit crimes against humanity and be completely inhuman. De Toth's Nazi offer a plausible and terrible example of human evil. The script is also original and bold because in 1943 it invented an institution called the United Nations. Pierre speaks of a remarkable film which, if you look at it more closely, is above all intelligent and also captivates with the strong documentary sharpness of its historical perception.

Award

aftermath

This film is considered by film historians to be the first dramatic film to deal with the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis against the Jews. It was released despite reservations from Columbia Pictures studio boss Harry Cohn.

The film fell into disuse over the years and it wasn't until the early 2000s that it regained the attention it deserves. In the third edition of her final 2003 study Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust , Annette Insdorf None praises Shall Escape for its visual dynamism - thanks in part to contributions from the revered cinematographer Lee Garmes - and his peers in European films of the 1940s for their courage To throw sand in the machinery of the rulers.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c None Shall Escape see notes at TCM - Turner Classic Movies (English)
  2. ↑ a b c d None Shall Escape see articles at TCM (English). Retrieved January 8, 2019.
  3. ^ A b Derek Winnert: "Non Shall Escape" (1944, Marsha Hunt, Alexander Knox and Henry Travers) - Classic Movie Review 7539 sS derekwinnert.com (English). Retrieved January 8, 2019.
  4. ↑ a b None Shall Escape see misc-notes at TCM (English)
  5. ↑ Bosley Crowther : None Shall Escape In: The New York Times . April 7, 1944 (English). Retrieved January 8, 2019.
  6. ↑ None Shall Escape (1944) sS cin-eater.blogspot.com (English, including ill. Original film poster). Retrieved January 8, 2019.
  7. ^ Marco Antonio Núñez: André De Toth. Pimera Parte - Saldando con el Presente: "None Shall Escape" sS cinedivergente.com (Spanish). Retrieved January 8, 2019.
  8. ↑ Dennis Schwartz: "None Shall Escape" - Prophetic, dark, psychological war drama, set in Poland. sS homepages.sover.net (English). Retrieved January 8, 2019.
  9. ↑ Non Shall Escape (1944) - The Bitter Nazi sS themoviescene.co.uk (English). Retrieved January 8, 2019.
  10. ^ Sylvie Pierre: A Propos of "None Shall Escape" sS sensesofcinema.com (English). Retrieved January 8, 2019.