Resisting Enemy Interrogation

I had heard of this film over the years, and finally got to see it today. This is a clever use of film for training American flyers to clam up if they are captured. Our flyboys end up in the clutches of the clever Germans, who use all kinds non-violent means to soften up the unsuspecting GI's to give up info on an upcoming raid.Others have commented on the Germans using torture to get information, but it is known now that Herman Goering, who made sure the Luftwaffe kept shot down flyers, would not allow that. Lloyd Nolan's opening and closing lines are terrific. He gives the lesson it's exclamation point very well. I give it an 8 out of 10. Look for it to come on again and record it if you have to, just to get a glimpse of WWII film-making.

An American bomber crew is captured and brought to a German interrogation camp. The soldiers are ordered to only give their names, ranks, and serial numbers. The soldiers resist all information gathering at first, but they soon fall prey to the Nazis' subtle and clever methods.

This is filmed like a regular movie with a regular story. It has Hollywood production and Hollywood actors. It is intended for military training and shown to soldiers. It does get turned into a movie after the war. It is actually quite effective in showing the sneaky ways of getting information although they don't show the most brutal methods.

Dear All,

Please read "The Interrogator," by Raymond F. Toliver. Toliver tells the true story of Hanns Joachim Scharff, one of the Luftwaffe's best P.O.W. interrogators. Sheer psychological tricks let him extract loads of information from his "guests." He tortured nobody because he did not need to do so. Years after the war, in the United States, some of these same men threw a party for him, despite the fact that several had felt severe remorse over having inadvertently disclosed so much.

How successfully a viewer of "Resisting Enemy Interrogation" could have withheld information from Scharff, I cannot say.

Sincerely,

Gordon F. Corbett

Resisting Enemy Interrogation (1944)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

WW2 drama got an Oscar nomination as Best Feature Documentary. The film tells the story of a group of American soldiers who are taken prisoner by German's and must keep their mouths shut so that they won't tip off the enemy. The German's, however, have their own form of interrogation to try and break through and learn of a future attack. This film was made to teach soldiers the type of tricks they might come across if taken hostage and on that level the film works just fine the real bonus here is the fact that the movie is told through the eyes and minds of the German's. I've seen a lot of these WW2 documentaries and for the most part they always look at things from the American point of view so it was great seeing it from the other way. I'm not sure how true the film is because all of the German officials promise not to torture the soldiers and they don't but it seems like they would have crossed the line if they really needed information on an upcoming attack. The performances are also very good with Arthur Kennedy leading the way as the main American soldier. I'm really not sure how this film got into the documentary department as it really plays out like a feature film, running 66=minutes and the only documentary type film-making is some opening and closing narration, which is aimed at American soldiers. As with a lot of these WW2 shorts, the film is pretty graphic at times, which the production code at the time seemed to overlook in this type of a film.

Thanks to TCM for giving us an opportunity to see this gem. Made by the Army Air Force's famous First Movie Unit well into the war (1944), this is one of their most polished efforts. It has a simple, but effective narrative: a US air crew of 5 is downed by the Nazis, who use every trick in the book (short of torture) to pump information out of them: ingratiation, intimidation, deceit and psychological welfare. None of the downed fliers means to co-operate with the enemy, but each in his own way contributes some information to their clever Nazis captors, which is then pieced together by the Nazi commanding officer, somewhat flamboyantly portrayed by Carl Esmond. The consequences are disaster.

The point of the film as a training device (forcefully driven home by Lloyd Nolan in the closing sequence) was that ANY information, no matter how innocent or trivial seeming on its face, could complete the jigsaw puzzle for Nazi intelligence services. All that should EVER be revealed to ANYONE outside your own crew once you were captured was name, rank and serial number. A simple lesson, you would suppose, but for 70 minutes (rather lengthy by the genre's standards, I think) the point is expertly honed by a fairly effective little drama.

In addition to Nolan, the other "big name" actor here is a young Arthur Kennedy, who appeared in many excellent films over the following quarter century.