Hangmen Also Die!

Superb addition to Fritz Langs wonderful catalogue of films.

We see here his trademark 'almost documentary' style as well as propaganda (See The Last Testament of Dr Mabuse for another take on the Nazi regime). His trademark shadows (See 'M').

Early in the film we see Heydrich, an evil dictator who used his mandate from Hitler in the fullest possible way. Here he is played by Hans Heinrich von Twardowski who really is scary in portrayal. Lang shows this brilliantly in the way that the Czech people fear him, and also that he is feared by his own men. The master stroke here is the way Heydrich speaks only in German with no subtitles, given an English translation by someone else in the room. People fear him as he is and even though they cannot understand him, they fear what he has said.

The film centres around the reprisals after Heydrich's assassination. The assassin is still living/hiding in Prague. A few know his identity. But they know that if they inform the Gestapo they will be killed and they also know if they don't they may die anyway.

The tight script builds the tension to the highest level to a brilliant climax.

The cast are brilliant, especially the ever reliable Walter Brennan. An actor of the highest caliber. Abley backed up by Anna Lee, Brian Donlevy & Dennis O'Keefe.

This film is made all the more brilliant by the fact that it's idea was conceived only a short time after Heydrich's real-life assassination, not necessarily from a propaganda point of view, but with Lang you know you will get a film that will bench mark the film industry for years to come and people will sit up and take notice.

The Nazi "protector" of Czechoslovakia is murdered and Gestapo is let loose to hunt down the assassin. Will the underground resistance survive? Will the assassin be betrayed by the Czech people as Gestapo murders innocent people to bring the assassin forward?

This is a very good movie, the plot brings lets the suspense gradually grow throughout the movie. This means that the beginning did seem a little slow, but given time, the patience will be rewarded. The ending is very good and you're not really sure exactly what will happen. The actors are good and the cinematic work very good.

There is a portion of propaganda in there as well, however, the evident propaganda is cut to a few scenes and do not interfere with the plot or the movie in itself. Instead, it is rather well integrated in the movie, and actually only bring the movie to another level.

Clearly set in the WWII, but this movie will never get old.

8/10

This is loosely based on the true story of a member of the Czech underground assasinating the nazi regional governer, a ruthless fellow they call 'the Hangman'. The story revolves around the assasin and the family that unknowingly hid him from the gestapo. When questioned by the gestapo, the family says the guy was there to see their daughter, who happens to be engaged to another fine gentleman. So this little situation complicates the story, as the gestapo detective,a very ruthless chap, tries to catch them in the lie. From there the story moves along in chilling fashion when 400 townfolks are rounded up to be executed in groups of 10 each day until the assasin is turned in. This causes people to question their inner strength and makes them wonder if it is worth it to sacrifice themselves to keep him hidden. The story gets resolves in a very clever way which I will not reveal. The movie has that film noir/Hitchkockian feel to it with the protagonist being chased down and making clever escapes by the skin of his teeth. Although the movie drags a bit here and there, it ends up being a worthwhile suspenseful drama and also makes you think a bit about what would you do if you were put in that situation.

Hangmen Also Die! (1943)

The best part of this movie is knowing it was made right in the middle of the war, not in some recreation of the events. It's a little hyperbolic, for sure, but really well acted (both the Nazis and the Czechs), and it ends up being a battle of wits and tricks between the two sides.

Fritz Lang was a refuge from Nazi Europe and made this in Hollywood, with an expected sensibility for the cruelties and barbarism of the occupying nasties. And they probably were this nasty--worse, in truth, though less comically so, as the movie sometimes pushes it a bit. Still, really enjoyable, in all. Yet, somehow, it was long. The twists from one scene to another started to sound familiar, and the tension was sustained rather than invigorated, if that makes any sense.

Brian Donlevy is the leading good guy here, and he's always a little less than compelling, though he is not in most of the scenes so I suppose that's fine. The double-crosser was played by Gene Lockhart, whose presence grows as the movie gets on, and by the end he's really pretty amazing (far beyond the caricature of, say, the judge he played in "Miracle on 34th Street"). Walter Brennan makes an appearance, recognizable mostly by his voice. Two of the Nazi higher-ups were terrific, both the Pilsner guzzling brute and the slightly comical but scary gestapo head.

Lang is no fool, and he makes this movie not only a pleasure, but an important tool to remind viewers to be involved, to realize that you can fight oppression, even Nazi oppression, with enough wits and sacrifice.

One of a handful of propaganda films made by Hollywood during WWII to show how various occupied European countries dealt with the situation; similar films included THE MOON IS DOWN (1941), EDGE OF DARKNESS (1943), THE NORTH STAR (1943) and THIS LAND IS MINE (1943). This one, however, differs from these in that it tackles a real-life event i.e. the assassination of Heydrich - dubbed "The Hangman" (his assassination was the subject of two more films, the contemporaneous HITLER'S MADMAN [1943] and OPERATION DAYBREAK [1975]) - and is further elevated by the contribution of two important figures of pre-war German art, director Lang and writer Bertolt Brecht.

It also features a great cast (mostly delivering excellent performances, but is saddled with a miscast and rather stiff Brian Donlevy in the lead): Walter Brennan and Gene Lockhart are featured in overly familiar roles but their contribution is, as ever, reliable and entirely welcome; best of all, perhaps, are Anna Lee and Alexander Granach; beloved character actor Dwight Frye (most familiar to horror-film buffs) appears here in one of his last roles but, as was generally the case, is regrettably given only a couple of lines!

Long and heavy-going, with the propagandist element coming off as fairly corny now, but the film is held firmly together by Lang's fine direction and James Wong Howe's superb noir-ish lighting (the Region 1 DVD by Kino was eventually re-issued as part of a 5-Disc Noir set). It also involves a couple of scuffles which are quite tense and energetic (Granach's death scene is especially striking), while the last third resorts to the organized frame-up by the Czechs of a traitor in their midst (collaborationist Lockhart) - which, in itself, is no less frightening an act than the heinous persecution of the Nazi regime!

I'm confused, however, about the film's running-time: the print I watched ran for 129 minutes in PAL mode (which would bring it to about 134 minutes when converted to NTSC); even so, it contains the ending missing from the DVDs released in Regions 1 and 2 which, being the same version i.e. cut and having the same length (134 minutes), would indicate that the Kino edition is a PAL conversion - which means a full running-time of 139 minutes (a minute short of the 'official' length, as per Lotte Eisner's book on Lang)! To make matters worse, both the Leslie Halliwell and Leonard Maltin film guides I own cite HANGMEN ALSO DIE! as being 131 minutes long!!