Although it was overshadowed by Lang's "Hangmen also die" , "Hitler's madman" seems closer to Borzage's "the mortal storm" ,with its depiction of life in an occupied town.But the finale was probably borrowed from Abel Gance's "J'accuse" (1919 and 1937) and its "wake of the dead" sequences.
Great sequences: the professor of philosophy resuming his lecture in front of the Nazis (there is a similar sequence in "the mortal storm");the female student,refusing to be treated as a beast ;the admirable scene where the mayor's wife,reading that her sons are dead, and cursing the "Fuhrer" (a famous lullaby the name of which I cannot remember ,makes a very moving score, as she remembers her boys' childhood).The hangman, in his bed and begging for morphine,as he too realizes that the Third Reich means nothing when you're dying.
Probably Sirk's best forties film .In the fifties,he would come back to WW2 and the Nazi barbarity with a work I consider his masterpiece : "A time to love and a time to die" (1958),from the great German pacifist writer Erich Maria Remarque's novel.
Great sequences: the professor of philosophy resuming his lecture in front of the Nazis (there is a similar sequence in "the mortal storm");the female student,refusing to be treated as a beast ;the admirable scene where the mayor's wife,reading that her sons are dead, and cursing the "Fuhrer" (a famous lullaby the name of which I cannot remember ,makes a very moving score, as she remembers her boys' childhood).The hangman, in his bed and begging for morphine,as he too realizes that the Third Reich means nothing when you're dying.
Probably Sirk's best forties film .In the fifties,he would come back to WW2 and the Nazi barbarity with a work I consider his masterpiece : "A time to love and a time to die" (1958),from the great German pacifist writer Erich Maria Remarque's novel.