Hitler - Beast of Berlin

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Movie
Original title Hitler - Beast of Berlin
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1939
length 87 minutes
Rod
Director Sam Newfield
script Fred Myton
production Ben Judell
music David Chudnow
camera Jack Greenhalgh
cut Robert O. Crandall
Holbrook N. Todd
occupation

Hitler - Beast of Berlin is an American propaganda film from 1939 directed by Sam Newfield . One of the leading roles is the very young Alan Ladd , who was first mentioned by name in the opening credits and who was to become one of Hollywood's top stars in the 1940s with films from the “Black Series”.

action

Germany under National Socialist rule. Hans Memling, an intellectual and patriot, is a staunch Nazi despiser. With his friends Anna Wahl, Gustav Schultz and father Pommer, he eagerly soaks up everything that foreign radio stations report about Germany and gathers information in order to then distribute it all over Germany with his own distribution system. He was also able to convince his brother-in-law Karl, the brother of his wife Elsa, that Hitler, the “Beast of Berlin” as the original title suggests, wanted to instigate a Second World War. Karl, who loves Anna, finally joins Memling's underground campaigns because he hopes that with his commitment he will be able to contribute to the fact that one day culture will return to Germany and that the power of the SA and the Gestapo will be broken. With the SA man Albert Stalhelm, the conspiratorial circle even has an important contact with the inner circle of the Nazi power apparatus. Stalhelm is more and more disgusted by the prevailing brutality in his circles and plans no less than to leave the SA and turn his back on Germany.

Hans asks Albert with his decision to wait until a replacement is found for him. Stalhelm agrees, but makes it clear to the others that he cannot guarantee that, with all the booze with his SA buddies, his tongue will not loosen up one day and he will then reveal secrets. Things get more complicated when Elsa announces to her husband one day that she is expecting a baby and it turns out that there must be a traitor around. It is - of course - Albert Stalhelm, whose prophecy has been brutally come true. For his unwanted betrayal, the drunk Albert is finally shot by an SA friend. In fact, the underground organization is exposed, and all of them, except for the pregnant Elsa, are arrested, tortured with lashes and sent to a concentration camp. One night Karl tries to escape from the camp, but is caught in the fading headlights and mowed down by a machine gun sheaf. With the help of bribes and a lot of luck, Hans manages to escape the camp and escape to neutral Switzerland with his wife. Elsa bravely explains that one can also fight Nazi barbarism from outside.

Production notes and trivia

This B-film, which was produced quite cheaply at 100,000 US dollars, was only the second American cinema production after I was a Nazi spy to be explicitly directed against the Nazis in Germany in 1939 and the first US feature film to have Hitler's name in the title .

Hitler - Beast of Berlin was written before the outbreak of war on September 1, 1939 and was premiered in New York on October 8, 1939. A little later, the producers of the film in the United States, which was still on a course of neutrality at the time, found the aggressive title (in German: Hitler - Die Bestie von Berlin ) too tricky, and after several cuts the film was renamed Beast of Berlin . In 1940 it was renamed again to the much more harmless title Goose Step , corresponding to the name of the story by Shepard Traube. Even after 1945 the film was not shown in German-speaking countries.

In order not to endanger his father Max Zilzer , who remained in Berlin , Wolfgang Zilzer , who also played here, called himself “John Voight”.

Director Newfield (actually: Samuel Neufeld) worked under the pseudonym Sherman Scott. Gerd Oswald was involved in this film as an assistant director, Fred Preble designed the film structures, Waldron Johnson the costumes.

Reviews

The Movie & Video Guide saw the film as “a weak object of exploitation that only functions as propaganda”.

Variety said in 1939: “There are no doubt powerful films that take on the Nazi theme. This is not one of them ”.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 471

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