Passport to Destiny

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.

I would have love to have known what Dr.Goebbels would have made of this incredible piece of wartime propaganda about a patriotic cockney cleaning lady from Camberwell who in a twist similar to 'DOA' is emboldened by the possession of a Magic Eye formerly in the possession of her late husband which she believes makes her indestructible, and thus sets off for Berlin to assassinate Hitler (where everyone conveniently speaks in English and she avoids exposure by passing herself off as a deaf mute).

As usual, Hollywood has strange ideas about the way the Nazi hierarchy functioned; and this version would have us believe that Himmler's office was located directly opposite Hitler's in the Chancellery, with Goebbels' cosily adjacent. William Joyce - as portrayed by the ever urbane Gavin Muir - according to this account has the run of the place, but seems to have little time for his Nazi minders nor they for him.

It's all complete nonsense, done on a shoestring; but it lifts the spirits to see the gorgeous Elsa Lanchester for her only time in Hollywood cast in the lead (she had starred in a few short silent comedies back in blighty fifteen years earlier) and she rises to the occasion with a gusto that amply makes up for the general shabbiness of the rest of the production.

Passport to Destiny (1944)

** (out of 4)

Bizarre "comedy" from RKO about Ella Muggins (Elsa Lanchester), a British woman who keeps with her a special glass eye, which her husband (photos of Charles Laughton are used) used to escape any bad harm. She decides to take this charm to Germany where she's going to work as a deaf and dumb house cleaner and she plans to get into Hitler's office and assassinate him. I'm really not too sure what RKO was thinking but this here is pretty much dead on arrival and if it weren't for the charm of Lanchester then we'd really have a disaster on our hands. This film is clearly just for fans of the actress since this here was her first and only leading role. I thought she managed to be quite charming here and especially during the scenes where she's pretending not to be able to hear anything going on. I'm sure some might take offense to this but the actress does a pretty good job in the part and she certainly helps keep the 65-minute running time moving at a decent pace. The one bit of trivia that might make this film appeal to some is that Lanchester was in BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN and co-star Lenore Aubert would eventually appear in the studio's ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN so perhaps Universal monster fans will want to see the two together. Gordon Oliver is also good in his supporting role. PASSPORT TO DESTINY is supposed to be a comedy but for the life of me I don't remember laughing a single time. The film manages to be mildly entertaining simply because of how strange the story is but it's just way too predictable and unfunny to really work.

This is surely one of the most extraordinary films to have come out of America during the war. It is also notable for being the only Hollywood movie in which Elsa Lanchester, best known as The Bride of Frankenstein, had the lead part and top billing. She plays a cockney charlady who is convinced she's protected by a "lucky charm" once owned by her late husband (cut to a photo of Charles Laughton) and is resolved to assassinate Hitler. During the London blitz, armed only with her bucket and a mop, she stows away on a ship across the English Channel and proceeds to scrub her way across Occupied Europe by pretending to be deaf and dumb. She lands up in Hitler's HQ in Berlin where language problems are solved by all the 'bad' Germans speaking English with funny guttural accents! Elsa gets a job as a cleaner in Hitler's office but he's out at the time so she delivers a propaganda-like speech to his empty chair. Some 'good' Germans opposed to Hitler (they all speak English with American accents) whisk Elsa back to England in a stolen plane. She is hailed as a heroine only to discover that the "lucky charm" she took with her was part of a job-lot of glass eyes! An absolutely priceless movie, and one which at the end is dedicated to the fighting US forces overseas. One can only wonder what they made of it.

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.