Le bunker

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 a cast. And what a splendid job they all do in this description of Hitler's last days in the fortified bunker far beneath the Chancellery as World War II was closing in all around the Führer and the remains of his staff. And not one of the actors tries to fake a German accent.

Anthony Hopkins gives the finest portrayal of a living dead man that I've seen. There have been numerous other version, documentary and fictionalized, and some are fine productions but they don't achieve parity. Alec Guiness, for instance, gave us a Hitler who was annoyed by the disintegration of his armies and his plans, an exasperated leader who acts as if the automobile he's just bought is a lemon and not covered by a warantee. Luther Adler showed us a bitter madman. But Hopkins is modulated, quiet, quietly disturbed, his right hand trembling after the attempt on his life the year before. Hopkins' Hitler can no longer raise his injured right arm high enough to give the full salute. It's a stunningly precise and believable portrait. Suspicious, but not a raging paranoid. And under stress he lets loose a startling hiss. It's not surprising that Hopkins does such a good job in the role. He was my co-star in the superior "Road to Wellville" and I gave him a few pointers that helped him over the rough spots. He seemed put out when I charged him ten cents for the tutoring.

The central conflict here is between Hopkins and Albert Speer, his Minister of Arms and War Production. Speer was a brilliant architect and industrialist, a relatively young handsome officer played here by Richard Jordan. Hitler was fond of Speer, considering both of them -- the architect and the erstwhile painter -- to be artists. But now Hitler has issued orders that all of Germany be destroyed before the Allies get to Berlin. Speer objects. Hitler is adamant. Speer develops a plan to introduce poison gas into the vent that supplies air to the underground bunker, which will kill everyone inside, including Hitler. But after the last assassination attempt, Hitler has become double wary and self protective. The plan is dropped and Speer remarks that he'll not try another because "I think I only had one in me." Speer decides instead to agree to the destruction of Germany but will prevent it by bureaucratic stalling and by wrapping the process in red tape.

There are scenes between Hopkins and Jordan that are truly touching. Speer was perhaps Hitler's favorite among his staff. "My good architect; my GENIUS architect." Now Speer is telling him frankly that the war is lost. Well, nobody else is telling der Fürher that the war is lost. They know better, because the penalty for acting on that belief is death. But Hopkins BEGS Jordan for some sign of faith. Okay, Jordan believes the war is lost. But does he have faith in ME? Does he at least have HOPE? "Even THAT would satisfy me." Jordan is desolate and Hopkins is near tears as he implores his friend to give some positive response. It's like watching the tragic breakup of a love affair or a marriage. It seems impossible but Hopkins brings humanity to the most inhumane human being of his century. I can imagine the outcries against a portrait of Hitler that isn't a stereotype.

To make matters worse, we see him flirting with Susan Blakely as his mistress, Eva Braun. But if the viewer needs the usual clichés, they're available in occasional dissolves followed by flashbacks to better times, when Hitler and Speer first met, before Germany became a sewer, before the death factories began to churn out their product. But history is inexorable. As Berlin is encircled, desperate attempts are made to get out, to avoid the vengeful Russians by surrendering to Eisenhower in the west. The atmosphere in the littered and unguarded bunker itself follows secretary Traudl Junge's description -- the men on the remaining staff dance and carouse with the women and drink themselves into a stupor. It was a big party. The party atmosphere was enhanced by the mockery of a marriage between Hitler and Eva Braun. "Do you swear that you are of pure Aryan descent and free of hereditary diseases?" It's impossible not to be moved as the end approaches and Josef Goebbels invites his staff to a farewell party. The camera lingers on the faces of his children, some barely old enough to sing the heroic song, and all of whom he and his wife Magda will shortly kill by cyanide poisoning.

There have been a number of films about Hitler's last days, both feature films and documentaries. This is one of the best. Let's hope it's also the last. Who wants to watch a long, slow suicide?

As far I know there are at least four movies over Hitler at bunker nearby closing of WWII, firstly Alec Guinness's HITLER THE LAST DAYS made in 1973, Anthony Hopkins's THE BUNKER finished in 1981, then came up Derek Jacobi's INSIDE THE THIRD REICH shot in 1983, and the lasted hors-concours Bruno Ganz's DOWNFALL, this low budge TV-movie in question is almost unknown by a large majority of cinephiles, aired in Brazil in 1986 I watched this fine picture wondering myself if some happenings down there were really true, as the mad dog Hitler demanding to Albert Speer a total destruction of Germany, aiming for didn't let stone unturned to allied forces, even it will cost millions of Germans lives, at my point of view very questionable in fact that Paris was took by Germans and when they lost the power of city it didn't happened there, even some sources said otherwise.

Also in the beginning of the movie the American Soldier James O'Donnell entering in Bunker complex trying figures out what's happened there on those 105 days underneath of surface, he already exposes to the audience the follow line "I can't guarantee that what you're about to see is historical truth", so start this statement all coming next should be understood as simple conjecture, instead accurate facts, even though it has many witnesses whom survived that surely could vouch for those facts here and there to assembly the whole overview in order to reach more closest of the truth.

Anthony Hopkins made a reliable Hitler aside some criticism from some, mainly because Mr. Bruno Ganz becomes unbeaten after his remarkable performance in DOWNFALL, thus stayed so hard for other Hitler's contenders, anyway a hard-to-find picture, I'd to appeal to our last hope Youtube which I've found a fine print with English subtitles only, I went back to 1986 briefly on those narrow facilities that was Hitler's shelter.

Thanks for reading.

Resume:

First watch: 1986 / How many: 2 / Source: TV-Youtube / Rating: 7.5.

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.

As a military historian, I've probably seen every film depicting Hitler and the last days of the Third Reich there is. Some stand out. "Inside the Third Reich" with Derek Jacobi, and "Hitler: The Last Ten Days," with Alec Guinness, to name a few. But as slow and downright melodramatic as this film is, I think that Anthony Hopkins' Hitler is right on the money, A superb acting job with a difficult role. He brings the image of an old man, difficult, palsied, volatile, confused, distant and changeable as a chameleon on an acid trip to life for the screen. It's not hard to play the classic Hitler with fits of rages and dour looks, but there is a lot more to it, and Hopkins pulls it off magnificently. He literally ages before your eyes and the gray pallor of the Bunker's stone walls seems to seep into his skin with every scene. Jordan as Speer is believable, and the somber, dirgelike music pulls out the hopelessness of the last gasp of the Nazi rat pack's future. Accurately done, but Hopkins is the real star here. But as one other user commented, is it really so hard for a Brit or an American to manage a German accent? Do all civilized Germans sound as if they had been raised in coventry? Ach du Lieber!