Executioners die too
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Executioners die too |
| Original title | Hangmen So Die! |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1943 |
| length | 130 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Fritz Lang |
| script |
John Wexley , Bertolt Brecht , Fritz Lang |
| production |
Arnold Pressburger , Fritz Lang |
| music | Hanns Eisler |
| camera | James Wong Howe |
| cut | Gene Fowler Junior |
| occupation | |
| |
Die Hangmen too (Original title: Hangmen Also Die! ) Is an American film drama by Austrian director Fritz Lang from 1943. The script is loosely based on the actual events that followed the assassination attempt on Reinhard Heydrich . The premiere in Germany took place on April 3, 1958.
action
In 1942 the Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich was appointed by the surgeon Dr. Frantisek Svoboda killed. Svoboda's escape is supported by history professor Stephan Novotny, who is himself under suspicion of the Nazis, and by his daughter Mascha.
In retaliation for the assassination attempt on Heydrich, 400 citizens of Prague , including Novotny, are to be executed as hostages if the assassin is not extradited to the Gestapo . The brewery owner Emil Czaka, apparently a supporter of the resistance, but in reality Gestapo spy, helps put together the hostage lists. The executions will start soon. With the help of falsified evidence and witness statements, the Czechoslovak resistance movement achieved that Czaka himself was suspected of the murder of Heydrich.
synchronization
In the last scene of the film, the final report for the Reich leadership in Berlin is presented to Heydrich's apparent successor. In the original, the resistance song No Surrender accompanies this scene. There is no speaking, but rather the viewer reads excerpts from the English-language report. In the German DVD version from 2011, which does not show which German version it is based on, a voice actor reads the text. It says in the report that Czaka could not have been the murderer and further that the use of force did not make it possible to force the people to betray the assassin and thus the German authorities were forced to recognize Czaka as the murderer in order to save face. And as the last sentence: “… and thus close the case”, which in the German subtitles is translated as “This, however, this matter is closed.”, While the German voice actor says: “That does not end this matter .” The Original guy boards again fade from "NOT" to "The End".
There are at least two German-language synchronizations. The dubbing listed below is obviously that of the version of East German television (premiered on September 9, 1984 under the title Hangman Die too ), since all of the dubbing actors listed here had already been dubbing actors in the former GDR, but several of them at the time of German theatrical release in 1958 were still children. The 2011 DVD version also features numerous scenes in the original English language, which were obviously added later to the German version.
| role | actor | Voice actor |
|---|---|---|
| Dr. Frantisek Svoboda | Brian Donlevy | Otto Mellies |
| Prof. Stephan Novotny | Walter Brennan | Harald Halgardt |
| Masha Novotny | Anna Lee | Petra Barthel |
| Emil Czaka | Gene Lockhart | Wolfgang Brunnecker |
| Reinhard Heydrich | Hans Heinrich von Twardowski | Manfred Wagner |
| Inspector Gruber | Alexander Granach | Roland Knappe |
| Dedic | Jonathan Hale | Hasso Zorn |
| Dr. Pilar | Edmund MacDonald | Roland Hemmo |
| Jan Horak | Dennis O'Keefe | Michael Telloke |
background
Director and co-producer Fritz Lang, screenwriter Bertolt Brecht and composer Hanns Eisler emigrated after the National Socialists came to power in 1933; Lang first went to France and shortly afterwards to the USA, Brecht to Denmark, later via Sweden, Finland, the Soviet Union to the USA and Eisler to Austria and then to the USA. For Brecht it was the only work for a Hollywood film. While Lang, who had also been a US citizen since 1939, remained in the USA, Brecht and Eisler returned to Germany after the war. Brecht achieved world fame with his poetic work and as a playwright, Eisler wrote, among many other things, the GDR's national anthem, Resurrected from Ruins (1949).
The actors Hans Heinrich von Twardowski, Reinhold Schünzel and Alexander Granach also fled from the Nazis, as did their colleagues Ludwig Donath, Arno Frey, Frederic Brunn, Fred Essler, Albin Robeling and Poldi Dur, who appeared in smaller roles in the film. Other employees of the film who fled from the Nazis were: producer Arnold Pressburger, his son and later film producer Fred Pressburger, who worked as an assistant director for this film, the orchestra leader and conductor Artur Guttmann and the technical advisor Max Pretzfelder.
Lionel Stander, known for his sonorous grave voice, as a taxi driver and George Irving , who had appeared in over 250 films from 1914, as Neeval, can be seen in small supporting roles .
Oscar-winning William S. Darling was responsible for setting the film . Oscar nominee Jack Whitney had already won two Oscars before this film, once for best sound and once for best special effects.
The original title of the film was No Surrender , from a song used in the film. But since a book with the same title was published before the end of filming, it was featured in Hangmen Also Die! changed.
Historical basis of the film
Reinhard Heydrich, born on March 7, 1904, was SS-Obergruppenführer , head of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) and Deputy Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia during the Nazi era . More than 200 people were executed under Heydrich, and he ordered the construction of the Theresienstadt concentration camp . The construction of the concentration camp came about as a result of the “ final solution to the Jewish question ”, in which Heydrich played a key role.
On December 29, 1941, Czech exiles and Slovaks Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš , who lived in England, jumped off with a parachute near Pilsen . They made their way to Prague and made contact with the Czech resistance movement. On May 27, 1942, the two carried out an assassination attempt on Heydrich, who was known to be traveling without an escort. He was seriously injured by a hand grenade. After a brief stabilization of his condition in the hospital, he died on June 4, 1942 as a result of blood poisoning in connection with peritonitis.
The attackers were initially able to flee. The Nazis put pressure on the population to blackmail them into transferring the assassins. On June 9, 1942, all male citizens over the age of 16 in the village of Lidice were killed. The women were taken to the concentration camp, the children to a central office for migrants , and the village itself razed to the ground. The same fate befell the village of Ležáky . Allegedly proven connections between the villages and the attackers were used as justification. The assassins who hid in the crypt of the Church of St. Cyril and Method in Prague were betrayed by a defector. After fighting with SS units, the men shot themselves.
Reviews
"Fritz Lang conceived his film as a" contribution to the war "against fascist Germany and made use of the caricature-like typifications of American propaganda films of the 1940s. At the same time, however, he follows the style and motifs of his earlier films: Dr. Mabuse has taken power in the form of fascist state terrorists. Lang does not want to give a realistic description, but rather to point out the Nazi terror to a non-German audience, which he succeeds in the form of an anti-fascist Hollywood film with adventurous entertainment elements. "
“Shortly after the actual assassination, director Fritz Lang turned this story into a sensational anti-Nazi drama. [...] Nevertheless: Fritz Lang creates breathtaking tension here too. "
Awards
At the Academy Awards in 1944 , the film was nominated for an Oscar in the categories of Best Film Music (Hanns Eisler) and Best Sound (Jack Whitney) .
DVD publications
- Die Henker, too , Fritz Lang Collector's Edition , 130 minutes, German and English, new edition 2006.
- Die Henker too , Fritz Lang / Bertolt Brecht, filmedition suhrkamp , 130 minutes, German and English with a 48-page booklet, Berlin 2011.
literature
- Hellmut G. Haasis : Death in Prague. The assassination attempt on Reinhard Heydrich . Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-498-02965-7 .
- Eduard Stehlik: Lidice: history of a Czech village . (Illustrated book with explanations) Verlag V Raji, Prague, 2004, ISBN 80-86758-16-8 (German edition).
Web links
- Hangmen Also Die in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Review in the Classic Film Guide (English)
- Executioners also die in the German dubbing files
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Die Henker , DVD, filmedition suhrkamp , Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin 2011.
- ^ Executioners also die in the IMDb, accessed on January 9, 2016.
- ↑ Executioners also die. In: synchronkartei.de. German synchronous index , accessed on January 9, 2016 .
- ↑ Die Henker, too , booklet accompanying the DVD, filmedition suhrkamp , Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin 2011
- ↑ Werner Mittenzwei: The life of Bertolt Brecht or dealing with the world riddles . Suhrkamp, Frankfurt / M. 1989 II p. 47.
- ↑ Executioners also die. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed September 5, 2017 .
- ↑ See prisma.de , Prisma