Le bunker

This is the true story of the infamous Nazi dictator with his historic downfall. The story of Hitler's last days in an underground bunker gives insight to his madness. Here in the midst of his lackeys the dictator played out the final act of his life . It's well played by Anthony Hopkins who won an Emmy prize for his excellent acting. Atmospheric cinematography and gloomy musical score by Brad Fievel. This television movie is finely written by prestigious scriptwriter John Gay and stunningly directed by George Schaeffer. Other adaptation about this historical character are : ¨Hitler(1962)¨ by Stuart Heisler with Richard Basehart, ¨Hitler : The last days(1973)¨ by Ennio De Concini with Alec Guinness and the best is ¨The Downfall¨ by Oliver Hischbiegel with Bruno Ganz.

The picture is correctly based on real events, adding more details , the deeds happened of the following manner : ¨Fuehererbunker¨(Leader's Bunker)is the subterranean headquarter below the Chancellery and its garden in Berlin where Hitler (Anthony Hopkins) spent his last days, from April 20 to 30, 1945. It was constructed during WW2 some 50 feet below the ground. It could be reached through the New Chancellery by descending a stairway from the butler's pantry. There were two levels, On the upper level was a dining passage separating six rooms on each side. At the end of the central passage a curved stair led down to Hitler's own deeper bunker. This area had seventeen rooms , all small, cramped , and uncomfortable : Hitler's suite of three rooms, a map room used for conferences, the dressing room and bedroom of Eva Braun(Susan Blakely), the bedroom of Dr Paul Joseph Goebbles(Cliff Gorman) and wife(Piper Laurie),the rooms of Dr Ludwig, lavatories and bathrooms, an emergency telephone exchange, a drawing room, guardroom, cloakroom and a dog bunker for Hitler's Alsatian bitch named Blondi, with her four puppies. Hitler spent hours before giant war maps, shifting colored pins about to locate units that no longer existed. By this time he was in a state of extreme nervous exhaustion : although only fifty-six, he moved as if he were prematurely senile. His health grew even worse the ministrations of his doctors(Frank Gatliff, Morris Perry). With the exception of Goebbles and Martin Bormann(Michael Londsdale), his secretaries and several others, his lieutenants began to desert him. He denounced Herrmann Goering(David King)for trying to usurp his leadership and Heimrich Himmler (Michael Sheard) for seeking to negotiate with the count Bernadotte and Allied. Albert Speer (Richard Jordan) his minister of Armaments and War Production , refused to carry out his orders for a scorched-earth policy. At last acknowledge defeat, the Fuehrer decided to leave the world in a gesture of Wagnerian self-immolation. In the early hours of April 29, 1945, he married Eva and immediately afterward dictated his last will and political testament, in which he justified his life and work. The next day he retreated into his suite and shot himself while Eva took poison to end her life. In accordance with his instructions, the bodies were dumped into a trough in the Chencellery garden,doused with gasoline and burned. From April 22 to May 1, 1945 , the following were present in the Bunker: Gen Keitel(John Paul), Gen. Hans Guderian(Brain Villa) , Col.Von Below(Julian fellows), Gen. Alfred Jodl(Steedman) , Major Gen. Rattenhuber(David Swift), Lieutenant Genen Fegelein (Terrence Hardiman), Dr. Ludwig Stumpfegger , among others.

A stunning portrayal by Hopkins. Unfortunately the other cast members (the male ones anyway) do not look enough like the ghastly originals (!) to be convincing. For example, Goebbels is well enough acted, as are they all, but he just does not have the cadaverous look of Dr. Joseph. The Reich architect Speer is portrayed as far too nice a man. He wasn't. The exception is Bormann. Michael Lonsdale is made to look a little like this detestable man. In bearing, size and demeanor Lonsdale captures the essence of Hitler's right hand man He kept in the background most of the time, but was nonetheless an extremely powerful figure in the Third Reich and his power comes over very well. A good script and well directed, this film is well worth watching, especially now that it is readily available, uncut, on DVD.

What went on in the last days of the Third Reich in Adolf Hitler's bunker? This tv film dares to answer that question. It is a first class work that should be shown more often. Anthony Hopkins is one of our acting icons like Olivier. He brings the same chilling conviction to the role of Adolf Hitler that he brought to Hannibal Lecter in Silence Of The Lambs. He portrays Hitler as a drug addicted shell of a man who was once invincible and he captures him at the end when all was lost. The most frightning scene in the film is where he explodes in rage at Albert Speer when he tells him that the war is lost. Hopkins captures all of the rage and madness that was Adolf Hitler, a demon in human form. It is at this point that I wanted to tip my hat to another fine thespian, Susan Blakely, she plays Eva Braun. She gives a wonderful performance as well. She is a first class actress who has never given a bad performance in anything that she has done and who has never been given the credit due her. They talk in this film about how Albert Speer tried to assassinate Hitler in the final days of the Third Reich. This is a blatant whitewash. Speer was lucky to escape with his life at the Nuremburg trial, he got off with twenty years. People called him "the Nazi who said he was sorry". That is all BS!!!!Speer willingly served Hitler for years! He knew of the concentration camps and approved of it. He was in on it from the very beginning and the son of a bitch should have ended his life with a hangman's noose around his neck! There was a writer who wrote a book about Speer called Albert Speer The Whole Story and I highly recommend it.

The Third Reich was a land of insanity from its very beginning. That insanity increased as time went on, and this movie offers a pretty good look at its last days, as Hitler and his entourage hole themselves up in a bunker underneath the Reich Chancellory and act as if they're actually accomplishing something, even as Germany is being systematically overrun by Allied armies.

Of most interest are the various performances and the manner in which the various personalities are portrayed. Anthony Hopkins' work as Adolf Hitler was very good - especially considering the difficulties involved in playing such a complex and controversial subject. I thought Hopkins nailed the emotional complexity of the man - deliberately hiding himself from the realities of the War, calmly sitting down to tea with his secretaries one minute, then launching into a deranged tirade against his generals the next, addicted to drugs administered by his personal physician. Those who did makeup for this also got Hopkins to look the part - well not perfectly, but pretty close. Where I thought Hopkins missed the mark a bit was in Hitler's physical state. Aside from some trembling, Hopkins' Hitler actually looked pretty healthy. Other actors have to be looked at as well though, because this movie isn't really about Hitler - it has more to do with how the various personalities involved interacted with Hitler.

Much of the movie revolved around Nazi architect Albert Speer. Richard Jordan handled the part well, although the portrayal of Speer was interesting - probably unavoidably so, since Speer was almost as complex a character as Hitler. In the movie, Speer comes across as basically a good guy, fighting against Hitler's insane plans. There's truth to that view, but it's too limited. Speer was a devoted disciple of Hitler, and his actions against Hitler began only when it became obvious that Germany would lose the war. For Speer, as long as Germany might win, the horrors of Nazism seemed acceptable. Something was lacking in Cliff Gorman's portrayal of Joseph Goebbels. A lot was right - the portrayal of Goebbels' fanatical devotion to Hitler and Nazism, his rabid anti-semitism and his cold as ice attitude - to the point of killing his own family without a second thought simply because he felt that without Hitler, there was no reason for any of them to live. Still, something about Gorman as Goebbels didn't work for me. He just didn't look the part, and I could never really equate the voice with Goebbels either. The third figure of significance was Martin Bormann, portrayed by Michael Lonsdale. Lonsdale was good here. Bormann was a rather shadowy character, and Lonsdale portrayed him that way. You could never really be sure what Bormann's priority was here - getting out of the bunker or staying loyal to Hitler. In fact, that's accurate, because above everything else, Bormann's main preoccupation was with power - whether represented by Hitler or someone else.

Largely missing from this account of these last days in the bunker (although it does pop up in the end) is the rather morbid and completely unreal question of who would succeed Hitler - as if there was going to be anything to succeed to. As I understand it, that was a rather serious issue in the bunker in those last days and weeks; it gets largely passed over in this movie. Basically, however, this is very well done. I particularly liked the last scene, when the machinist Hentschel (Martin Jarvis) throws papers in disgust at the radio when it announces Hitler's heroic death, "fighting to the last breath against Bolshevism," when Hentschel knew full well that Hitler had cowardly committed suicide and left everyone else to fend for themselves. Overall, I give this a 7/10

A truly good performance here for Anthony Hopkins. I would say as good as the Bruno Ganz's one, back in 2004 for THE FALL. I won't add anything more to the other comments. A real great TV movie.

But just little thing, about characterizations of Adolf Hitler all over the years.

I you closely Watch footage film showing the dictator, the real one, you'll notice that his hair - at least in the last years of his life - did not fall on his forehead, the left side. It was ONLY in the early years, during his rise to power. And curiously, in all films - I must admit although that I don't exactly remember the Bruno Ganz portray - Hitler is shown with his hair falling on the left side of his forehead. I have always wondered why... And I guess I found out. It's only a way to hide the lack of resemblance between the actor playing Hitler and the Führer himself. Because in all memories Hitler had his hair falling on the left side of his forehead. But that just remains a little detail, that DOESN'T NOT point out any flaws in the performances and the quality of this little TV gem.