Anche i boia muoiono

In case you can't tell from the title, Hangmen Also Die! Is a very heavy film. It's one of those underground resistance movies made during the height of WWII, and it's incredibly powerful even now after we know we've won the war. There were many of this sub-genre made during the time period before an Allied victory was assumed, and they all captured a very scary feeling. Stick together, trust no one, and be prepared to give your life so your children won't have to live in a German-speaking world.

This movie takes place in Czechoslovakia, during the Nazi occupation with strict curfews and rules against congregation. However, there's a man out when he shouldn't be, running around where he shouldn't be. He kills a Nazi soldier, and just when he's about to be captured, a young woman who watched the incident does a small act of kindness. She lies to the pursuing guards and points them in the wrong direction, buying the man some time. Little does she know she's opened her entire family to scrutiny and changed everyone's lives forever.

Brian Donlevy is the man on the run, and Anna Lee is the woman who saves him. He believes he can trust her, so he seeks refuge for the night in her home as an alibi. Her father, Walter Brennan, and her mother Nana Bryant, are against the idea, knowing it will get them into trouble - but they're already in too deep to turn back. So, Brian stays the night and the family tries to come up with a plausible story that will keep everyone out of trouble. Sure enough, the Gestapo find out and question them, headed by the ruthless interrogator Alexander Granach.

Fritz Lang's fantastic direction keeps a fast pace that never lets you catch your breath. Everyone in the cast is uncharacteristically intense, giving some of their best performances - and I can't help but give credit to Lang as well. When the entire cast is at the top of their game, the director has usually given his all, too. Brian Donlevy is usually a villain, Walter Brennan is usually a crotchety hick, Gene Lockhart is usually genial, and Alexander Granach made very few talkies after his successful silent career. Partly because of these against-type performances, and partly because of the suspenseful script, the movie constantly surprises. This is not easy to watch, but it's worth it if you can.

The actors in this film made any number of cheesy B movies during the war, but with Berthold Brecht and Fritz Lang behind them they made a movie touching on greatness. Check out the characterizations of Heydrich, the policeman Gruber, and the other Gestapo agents. Walter Brennan as the patriotic father was an odd choice, but maybe I'm being blinded by his later Western sidekick roles. The sets are outstanding. Although obviously on a Hollywood back lot they made a very believable Prague, using in part pre-war travelogue footage of the city. Indoor scenes are excellent. The actors look like they live in a real place, not a cuckooland paradise that most hack directors would give you.

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

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!!

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.