The Death of Adolf Hitler

This outstanding English film was only shown on American TV once in 1983. I am stationed in Germany and was lucky enough to find it at a video store here. Frank Finlay has got to be the scariest Adolf Hitler ever! He captures all of the evil and madness that was Hitler. There was another movie about Hitler's last days that appeared on American TV in 1981 called The Bunker where Anthony Hopkins played Hitler (he won an Emmy for it). Hopkins was good, Finlay is unforgettable. His performance haunted me for years after I saw the film. The scene that got me was where Hitler has a delusion that he is back in the Vienna sewers of his youth and keeps talking about getting rid of the rats. This amazing actor certainly deserves to be better known. He was also the scariest Marley's ghost that I have ever seen in the 1984 tv version of A Christmas Carol where George C. Scott played Scrooge.

I was sure that I was going to enjoy watching this but I didn't. Who ever had the idea that Frank should deliver 90% of his dialogue at full volume made a very bad mistake, it was very weary some to listen to for so long and it made it difficult to watch.

Over all the acting was poor and the bunker interior was far too studio looking to be in any way convincing, the audience constantly being aware that it was a studio with studio lighting.

Not enough interaction at a reasonable volume level between Hitler and his staff to make it interesting.

I've not seen "Downfall" but even so I know that it has to be vastly superior to this poor effort.

Very poorly acted. It reminded me of a high school drama production. The acting was very stiff and awkward. I could tell when I was supposed to feel sympathetic, or shocked, or just plain sad. But honestly I didn't feel anything but bored. Mr. Finlay does a lot of hysterical screaming in this film, but I'm not sure why since I couldn't understand most of what he was saying. Give this film a pass and watch Hitler: The Last 10 Days with Alec Guiness instead. You'll get a lot more out of it.

This Sunday night play for ITV was the final days in the bunker of the Hitler regime.

Comparisons will be made with Bruno Ganz's performance in Downfall.

Both productions share similarities. Which means the writers must have gone to similar historical sources regarding Adolf Hitler's final days, even final hours. The rest is conjecture.

Frank Finlay gives a highly volatile performance as Adolf Hitler. Regularly pumped up with drugs by his doctors. He thinks it is vitamins and he has been an addict for years.

His close circle know that Hitler is deranged. Flip flopping at any minutes, ranging between moments of calmness to madness. He could not decide whether to leave the bunker and Berlin and escape elsewhere.

In an early scene he reduces his deputy Hermann Göring to tears by insulting him in front of others.

Then there is Hitler's complex relationship with his longtime lover Eva Braun. The drama places a doubt as to how much he might have really loved her. She too was disturbed as well.

They finally get married as the Russians are advancing on Berlin. Looking forward to the wedding breakfast, likely to be a cyanide pill or a bullet.

Everyone seemed to be without remorse even with the end in sight. From death, destruction to genocide. The Nazis were still convinced they were in the right even though the war was lost.

This drama shown in 1973, is lower budget than Downfall. This was a studio bound production made 30 years before the more expensive feature film. It is riveting stuff.

Let's start with its main positive. It has an excellent cast of 1970's British actors, headed by the great Frank Finlay.

And that in all fairness , it needs to be judged on the basis (unlike "Downfall" ) that it was a small budget TV production without any exterior location scenes produced over 50 years ago.

However, this version of the last days of Adolf Hitler has been completely overshadowed by "Downfall". And whilst Frank Finlay does an excellent job, he is not as convincing as Bruno Ganz was in portraying Hitler. In fact, Frank Finlay or more likely, the script he was given, almost parodies Adolf Hitler into a cliche, cartoon type character. And the excellent cast are also mainly reduced to portraying cliches of the well-known historical characters they are meant to portray.

As a consequence, this production now comes across as good TV theatre with an excellent cast of 1970 's actors - making it an interesting TV historical timepiece. For which we are to thank TPTV for showing.