Pas un n'échappera

Never viewed this film until recently on TCM and found this story concerning Poland and a small town which had to suffer with the Nazi occupation of the local towns just like many other European Cities for example: Norway. The First World War was over and people in this town were still suffering from their lost soldiers and the wounded which War always creates. Alexander Knox, ( Wilhelm Gimm)"Gorky Park" returns from the war with a lost leg and was the former school teacher in town. He was brought up a German and was not very happy with the Polish people and they in turn did not fully accept him either. As the Hitler party grew to power Wilhelm Grimm desired to become a Nazi in order to return and punish this small Polish town for their treatment towards him which was really all in his mind. Marsha Hunt,(Marja Pacierkowski),"Chloe's Prayer", played an outstanding role as a woman who lost her husband and was romantically involved with Whilhelm Gimm. There are many flashbacks and some very real truths about how the Nazi destroyed people's families and their entire lives. The cattle cars are shown in this picture with Jewish people heading to the Nazi gas chambers. If you have not seen this film, and like this subject matter, give it some of your time; this film is very down to earth for a 1944 film and a story you will not forget too quickly.

This one is tough to watch -- as an earlier reviewer says. That is amazing considering the terrible films that came out right after WWII -- particularly the "liberation" of Dachau. It is clear that, as of the middle of the war, we knew exactly what was happening to the Jews. The sequence that shows a "transport" is vivid, almost as if based upon an actual newsreel (the Nazis liked to record their atrocities). Knox as the Nazi is brilliant. He charts the course of a Nazi career. That charting is particularly telling when contrasted with the reactions of other Germans, at first laughing at Hitler, then incredulous, and finally helpless. That contrast, however, permits us to believe in the "conversion" of one young Nazi officer to an anti-Nazi stance. That did happen, as witness the several attempts against Hitler, most notably the Staffenberg plot which occurred as this film was coming out. A strong film, effectively using flashbacks, accurately predicting the Nuremburg trails and others that would occur once the war ended.

"None Shall Escape" is a scathing investigation into the pysche of a Nazi. It explores the circumstances and personality traits of someone for whom the Nazi ideology would be welcome in an effort to explain how otherwise "normal" people could find themselves swept along by such a horrific movement. The Nazi at the film's center, played by Alexander Knox, finds himself drawn to the movement out of unresolved feelings of vengeance, a sense that he needs to get back at those who, in his mind, wronged him in some way. Basically it's the story of someone who has felt bullied himself becoming the bully, but on a monstrous scale.

I admired this film for trying to address Nazi atrocities as they were happening. For all of the hordes of Hollywood films made during WWII, I can't think of a single other one that actually showed Nazis gunning down Jews, or showed them being herded onto train cars for transportation to extermination camps. This film is also weirdly prescient; the framing device of the film is a fictional war crimes trial that anticipated the actual Nuremberg trials that would occur after the end of the war.

Knox gives a sterling and frightening performance. The film makes of his character a believable and very human brand of evil, so it's not easy to simply dismiss him as a beastly aberration.

"None Shall Escape" received an Oscar nomination for Best Motion Picture Story in 1944.

Grade: A-

This is a neat little B picture where World War II has already been one and Nuremberg like trials are taking place. One such trial is that of SS officer Alexander Knox and is told in flashback by several witnesses to his barbarism and cruelty.

Knox was a soldier in World War I and was wounded in the trenches and lost a leg. Before the war he lived in German occupied Poland as a school teacher and was not loved. Now that Poland has been reconstituted a nation Knox is even more unwelcome. So he makes his way to the new Weimar Republic in Germany and lives in Munich where another WW1 veteran is organizing a new Nazi party that excites Knox.

Even in this country many things can push someone into those kind of extreme political beliefs. Knox's individual story is never lost against the background of the historical events taking place. Knox is fascinating portrait of studied and carefully nurtured cruelty. As he rises in the party when war is declared and over in a manner of weeks in 1939 against Poland he makes sure he's assigned to that old village.

One thing that was most assuredly not true. The film notes the friendship of Catholic priest Henry Travers and Rabbi Richard Hale. The film deserves praise for recognizing what would later become the holocaust. But in pre WW2 Poland ain't no way Travers and Hale would be any kind of friends. The film was written by Lester Cole of the Hollywood 10 and it got an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. On that point Cole was truly fantasizing.

Others to note in the cast are Marsha Hunt as the village schoolteacher who was a teen back when Knox was the teacher, Richard Crane as Knox's nephew whom he tries to create a mirror image of himself, and Trevor Bardette the grown version of a kid who hated Knox when he was the schoolteacher.

Maybe without big name stars this film has managed better than most wartime films to still be relevant today. Very relevant when looking at today's current climate.

The only reason I give this movie an 8 out of 10 is because there are few movies, in my opinion, that are perfect. This little B picture is a taut story, well told. I've always been intrigued by Alexander Knox, but have seen him very few movies. Here he plays Wilhelm Grimm, a sad little man who turns into a monster. He betrays everything and everybody without an ounce of remorse. The performance is one of the most chilling performances I've ever seen. Since World War 2, actors who played Nazis or other evil types in films have occasionally been nominated for Oscars. I imagine that since this was made during the war, the Academy felt like honoring a performance like this would have been like honoring evil. But Knox puts in that kind of performance--a man so bitter and consumed by guilt that he thinks nothing of making others suffer. I still can't get over it.

Marsha Hunt, who usually plays the filbert gibbet or social butterfly, is cast against type in probably the best performance I've ever seen her give, too. Maybe not Oscar worthy, but the best of her career. Nothing against her; I have enjoyed her in those "slight" roles she often played. But here she proves she up to the task of heavier drama.

If you like human drama stories, or stories about the fates of those who suffered at the hands of the Nazis, I highly recommend this fine little film.