Hitler (1962)
Hitler is a 1961 American film biography with Richard Basehart in the title role .
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In the form of a chronicle, the film traces the key events in Adolf Hitler's life, as they essentially happened between 1923 ( march on the Feldherrnhalle ) and 1945 (suicide in the Berlin bunker).
End of the war in 1918: Ragged German soldiers return defeated to the Reich. In Munich in the early 1920s, the young Adolf Hitler began to make a name for himself as an unscrupulous agitator and brilliant speaker. His attempt to overthrow the elected government with the march on the Feldherrnhalle on November 9, 1923 failed and he was sentenced to five years imprisonment, of which he only had to serve 264 days. There, comfortably furnished, he dictates his battle and inflammatory pamphlet Mein Kampf to a loyal man . The verbal attack by a fellow prisoner from the far less comfortably equipped cell opposite only strengthens the self-proclaimed "leader" of the NSDAP in his thoughts and actions.
The 20s as a political epoch in Hitler's life are passed through in a hurry in the film and more and more attention is directed to Hitler's relationship with his niece Geli Raubal . She is a happy, pretty, young girl whose goings-on Uncle Adolf follows with jealous possessiveness. For example, when Geli dances with a young blonde Nazi at a festival with like-minded people, Hitler, who has just had a heated argument with his pioneer Gregor Strasser , is beside himself. He indicates to Geli's dance partner that he should leave immediately, rudely rebukes Geli and leaves the ballroom angrily. More and more Hitler displeased Geli's arbitrariness, his possessiveness, paired with increasing fits of jealousy, and the fact that the "Führer" in Geli, plagued by a mother complex, always sees his mother's face, ultimately lead Hitler to assassinate Geli at Heinrich Himmler in order.
Surrounded by early loyal followers such as Ernst Röhm , Joseph Goebbels , Himmler, Julius Streicher and Hermann Göring , Hitler, who originally intended to inherit President von Hindenburg in his office, finally rose to the highest government office on January 30, 1933: he became appointed Reich Chancellor. Less than a year and a half later, Hitler mercilessly reckons with some of his adversaries who might stand in his way on the way to absolute power and has them murdered in the so-called “Night of the Long Knives” . In his private life he intensified his relationship with the assistant of his in-house photographer Heinrich Hoffmann, a certain Eva Braun . Hitler had got to know her in the presence of Goebbels, when she brought him some “Führer photos” to view. However, at Hitler's behest, this relationship is treated like a secret state affair.
During the Second World War , Hitler's tasks as warlord came more and more to the fore. During a visit to a concentration camp, he expresses himself extremely derogatory of the Jews at the sight of the cruel gassing death of the inmates. When he married Eva Braun in the bunker deep underground at the end of April 1945, he denied her the right to be addressed as "Frau Hitler". Only his mother, according to his oedipal reason, has the right to call herself that. Thereupon Eva accuses her new husband of having caused all the mischief of the past few years due to his impotence . Then Hitler first kills Eva, then himself. Both corpses are burned in the garden in front of the Reich Chancellery, in the last shot the flames are blazing brightly.
Production notes
Hitler was the first American Hitler biography after World War II and was shot in Hollywood in mid-1961. The film opened on March 21, 1962 and advertised on the poster dominated by an oversized swastika with the lurid headlines:
- The Private Life of Hitler! Revealed for the first time! His intimate secrets ... revealed by his mistress! His secret shame ... told by his doctor! His shocking scandal with the niece he had murdered!
- Translation: Hitler's private life! Revealed for the first time! His intimate secrets ... published by his lover! His secret shame ... told by his doctor! His shocking scandal regarding the niece he murdered!
All actors, including the native American Basehart, speak with a thick “Teutonic” accent. In a few passages, for example when fellow prisoner Schönberg verbally attacked Hitler during Landsberg's imprisonment, German is also spoken briefly.
Cordula Trantow in the role of Geli Raubal was nominated for her performance at the Golden Globe Awards in the category Best Female New Discovery.
The buildings are by William Glasgow , Frank A. Tuttle provided the equipment.
Hitler was never shown in Germany , so there is no German dubbed version.
Directed by Stuart Heisler , whose last film it was. The screenwriter Sam Neuman also had personal motives for working on Heisler's strips. All of his mother's siblings had been murdered in Nazi concentration camps.
This production, which focuses heavily on sensationalist elements, focuses in considerable parts on Hitler's love and private life and contains a large number of inaccuracies, speculations and false assertions of facts. So it is shown that Hitler
- commissioned the assassination of Geli Raubal, although historical research has long since shown that she committed suicide.
- Claus Graf Stauffenberg hung up as a result of the unsuccessful assassination attempt on July 20, 1944, although he and three of his co-conspirators were shot on the night of July 20 to 21, 1944.
- Not only were sexual difficulties and inferiority problems plagued, but that he is also said to have once had a homosexual relationship with SA chief Ernst Röhm.
- owned an Oedipus complex .
- ever visited a concentration camp - his visit to Auschwitz is shown.
Reviews
In its September 13, 1961 edition, Der Spiegel devoted itself extensively to the shooting. The article ad nauseam says: “While the Reichstag is on fire, Hitler flirts with Eva Braun. While Hindenburg dies, he lolls in bed with her. While Stalingrad falls, she wants to become his wife. Such links between Adolf Hitler's private life and significant historical events are offered by a film that is currently being promoted in Hollywood. The wickerwork is the latest attempt to explain the Hitler phenomenon - this time not in a documentary but in a full-length feature film. "This is the most exhausting role I've ever played," the famous actor Richard Basehart, who is supposed to mimic Adolf Hitler as a whining lover and an angry dictator. “I have to roar from the beginning to the end of the film, even in the sentimental passages.” Because in a “psychological study” the Hollywood company Allied Artists shows the leader as if he were the title character of a Tennessee Williams drama: sexually impotent, incapable to love normally, and also afflicted with a profound Oedipus complex. (...) The establishment of the Third Reich, the Second World War, Hitler's end in the Führerbunker in Berlin - all of this is described (in part with previously unpublished documentary recordings), but also interpreted in a way that is typical of the end of the film. "
In Stuart Heisler's biography, the film's large lexicon of people called the film "a very unsuccessful Hitler biography with a totally miscast Richard Basehart in the title role."
The Movie & Video Guide wrote: "Basehart gives a cerebral interpretation to the career of the leader of the Third Reich". Translation: Basehart gives an intellectual interpretation of the career of the Führer from the Third Reich.
Halliwell's Film Guide characterized the film as follows: "Enterprising sensationalism which deserves a nod for sheer audacity". Translation: Enterprising sensationalism that deserves approval for its sheer audacity.
Eleanor Mannikka summed up: "Any viewers looking for an explanation of how the madness within Hitler related to his rise to power and his downfall, will best look elsewhere". Translation: All those viewers who want an explanation for all the madness about Hitler and his rise to power should look elsewhere.
Web links
- Hitler in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ FSK approval , accessed on June 23, 2015.
- ↑ Der Spiegel, issue 38/1961, p. 96
- ^ Personnel ad nauseam in Der Spiegel 38/1961
- ↑ Kay Less : The film's great personal dictionary . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Volume 3: F - H. Barry Fitzgerald - Ernst Hofbauer. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 620.
- ^ Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 582.
- ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 471.
- ^ Hitler in The New York Times