Hitler's Madman
Hitler's Madman is an American propaganda film made in the winter of 1942/43 by the German director Douglas Sirk , which was also his first production in exile in the USA. This production is based on the novel Hangman's Village by Bart Lytton and is considered a direct, cinematic reaction to the Heydrich assassination attempt on May 27, 1942. Hitler's Madman is considered a typical emigre work in Hollywood during World War II .
action
The story reconstructs the precise development of a plan that was to lead to the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich , the deputy Reich Protector in Bohemia and Moravia . The British government has instructed Czech nationalists to kill this leading representative of the hated Nazi occupation regime in an attack.
At the center of the resistance are Karel Vavra and Jan Hanka, who are hunted down by the occupying forces after the assassination attempt and who finally engage in a merciless firefight lasting many hours in a Prague church .
As a result of the attack, the SS and other police forces take terrible revenge and murder the small Czech town of Lidice as part of a retaliatory measure . 172 boys over 15 years and men were shot immediately, 195 women deported to German concentration camps. Around a third of them did not survive the camp stress. Eventually Lidice is razed to the ground. This ends the highly topical film at the time of its release.
Production notes
Hitler's Madman was filmed at Fine Arts Studios in Santa Monica and MGM Studios in Culver City from November 1942 to May 1943 and premiered on August 28, 1943. Even after 1945 the film was not shown in German-speaking countries. With around a dozen emigrants, an unusually large number of artists who fled Hitler's “Third Reich” took part.
Director Sierck / Sirk wanted Eugen Schüfftan to be the cameraman for his production, but he did not get a work permit for the USA because the ASC cameramen association there refused him membership. Therefore, an American no-name B photographer by the name of Jack Greenhalgh had to serve, while Schüfftan de facto photographed the film alone. Albrecht Joseph was involved in the story,
Almost at the same time, Sirk's colleague Fritz Lang, who also emigrated, made a film about the events in May / June 1942: Executioners Die too . The emigrants Hans Heinrich von Twardowski , Lutz Altschul (as Louis V. Arco), Otto Reichow , Hans von Morhart and Hans Schumm took part in both films.
Reviews
CineGraph located in Sierck / Sirk's film the "reflection of the country he had left five years earlier". It goes on to say: “The structure of the film is based on a number of contrasts, the most striking of which is that between Czechs and Nazis.” This is particularly evident in the juxtaposition of landscape / nature (Czechs) and the cities and the power of machines (German), but also from Christianity (= Czechs, see opening sequence) and paganism (= Nazis).
The Movie & Video Guide saw the film as a “sensationalist legend”.
Halliwell's Film Guide also said he had discovered “cheap sensationalism” in this emigre production, but nevertheless conceded “a certain raw force”.
In 1942, the Herald Tribune very cynically recommended that its American readers consume newspaper reports of Allied bombing raids on German cities as an effective antidote to terrible feelings after going to the cinema.
Theodore Strauss said in the New York Times that despite “poorly illustrated scenes of brutality, the film would kindle a common anger [against the Germans]”.
Individual evidence
- ↑ CineGraph: Detlef Sierck, Delivery 8, F 6
- ↑ CineGraph: Detlef Sierck, Delivery 8, E 11
- ^ Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 582
- ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 471
Web links
- Hitler's Madman in the Internet Movie Database (English)