Passport to Destiny

Offbeat and Wild RKO Comedy Starring Elsa Lanchester. Showcasing Her considerable Comedic Talents, makes this Farce a Lot of Fun. Watching the Scrubwoman Foil the Nazis one can't help Think of "The Great Dictator" (1940), "To Be or Not to Be" (1942), and Even the Three Stooges.

This little B-Movie Charms its Way through the One Hour Running Time and is Never Boring. Elsa Carries the Show and the Supporting Cast Helps make this a Goofy Gamble that Works its Wonders with its Fantasy Plot, the Assassination of Adolf Hitler, by a Commoner (a Female no less). "Who's a commoner?", says Mrs. Muggins.

The Silliness about Her Dead Husband is Overplayed a bit, and the Deal about the "Magic" Eye had to be Debunked because of the Hays Code's "Religion" Clause, but Aside from that, the Movie is quite Entertaining.

Googily little wartime fantasy about a cleaning lady who, convinced a lucky charm owned by her late husband (played in two photographs by an uncredited Charles Laughton, Lanchester's real-life husband) will keep her from harm, goes to Berlin to "give that blooming Mr. Hitler what for." Ably supported by a cast of first-rate comics, particularly Lumsdale Hare and Fritz Feld, it still requires Miss Lanchester at her most wide-eyed to pull this one off.

To make a successful comedy/action movie about Hitler and Co, filmed in the midst of World War Two, requires the genius of a Lubitsch (i.e. "To Be Or Not To Be") rather than what we have here, namely Leo Mc Carey's kid brother with about a fifth of his elder sib's talent. It also does not help that the screenplay provides alarmingly few funny lines or interesting characters beyond Ms. Lanchester's indomitable janitor. So we are left with a decent performance by the usually hammy but this time blessedly more restrained Lanchester and comedy that is not all that funny and action that is not all that action-y. And I really could have done without the relatively benign treatment of Lord Haw Haw. Solid C.

During World War II, London widow Elsa Lanchester (as Ella Muggins) reminisces about her deceased husband Albert. A notorious liar, he claimed to have "magic eye" which protected him from harm. Sadly, Albert wasn't carrying the glassy object when he expired. Locating the magic eye in an attic, Ms. Lanchester carries it safely through a German air raid. Convinced she now possesses a charmed life, Lanchester wisely decides to assassinate Adolf Hitler. She stows away on a ship and makes her way to Germany...

In Berlin, Lanchester looks up Hitler in the local phone book. She poses as a deaf mute cleaning woman attending to Nazi officials. These scenes are amusing. In a subplot, resistance officer Gordon Oliver (as Franz von Weber) seeks to rescue his sweetheart Lenore Aubert (as Greta Neuman) from a Gestapo prison. Reliably funny Fritz Feld and effectively villainous Lionel Royce have the best supporting material. The photograph of "Albert" is, as you might suspect, Lanchester's real-life spouse Charles Laughton.

***** Passport to Destiny (1/31/44) Ray McCarey ~ Elsa Lanchester, Gordon Oliver, Fritz Feld, Lionel Royce

While I have seen a lot of wartime propaganda pictures, I must admit that "Passport to Destiny" is among the strangest of them! The story is about a very weird lady (Elsa Lanchester) who thinks her good luck charm will keep her from all harm. And, because of this, she is going to sneak into Germany and murder Hitler!!

The lady rather easily arrives in Germany and pretends to be deaf and unable to talk. Oddly, the Nazis hire her as a janitor to work in the very building where the top Nazis work...and her plan appears to be going quite well. So what's next? See the film.

The film never really makes much sense and if you are looking for realism, you had best skip this one. Lanchester's character rather easily gets into wartime Germany and gets out even easier! And, she very easily gets a job with access to top Nazis....something else that makes little sense. So, provided you can turn off your brain and just enjoy, the film is worth seeing--otherwise, it's a dopey little film, that's for sure!