I have to draw a distinction between aesthetic properties and informative values when it comes to this movie.
On the one hand, looking at the movie from an educational point of view, it may be of genuine value. Surveys consistently find that Americans, especially young Americans, are a people without history. Focus groups following the release of "Pearl Harbor" ten years ago discovered that an alarming percentage of the intended audience thought that John F. Kennedy was president when the attack occurred. A student at a famous Midwestern university complimented Barbara Tuchman for her lecture of the origins of World War I because he'd "always wondered why the other was called World War II." A survey done in 2010 found that one in five Americans didn't know which country the United States had won its independence from. I could go on but won't. I'll conclude by saying that for far too many of us, this movie, which identifies the guy named Adolf Hitler and suggests the role he played in the story of the 20th century, is invaluable.
Now, as a polished piece of movie making, it's plain terrible. First, Richard Basehart is badly miscast. But then anyone would have been miscast in trying to play a figure from a patriotic cartoon in 1943. There is no "character arc." Hitler begins as a scowling, trigger-tempered character who berates everyone around him, lusts openly to dominate the world, and is beset by indistinct but definite Freudian problems that he steadfastly denies. The only time he smiles -- rather than smirks -- is at the end, when he is completely loony and is ordering divisions around on a map after he's been told they don't exist.
There really isn't much about his conduct of the war. It's more about his inability to love and his paranoia with regard to subordinates. Here's an example of what I mean.
He enters the office of his personal physician and asks gruffly, "So how is your patient today?" "You look pale. The fight with Hindenberg must have been strenuous. Are you still suffering from the headaches?" "I'm not HERE to talk about THAT!" Some of the material is highly conjectural. Hitler develops an affection for his niece, Geli, and when he fails in his attempt to make love to her, she threatens to let the world know that he is not a real man. This is a big mistake on Geli's part. It's also a big mistake on the part of Adolf. Anybody who is physically unable to get it on with the lovely, sixteen-year-old Cordula Trantow, who has scarcely lost her pubescent chubbiness, is in serious hormonal trouble.
But the movie denies Hitler any sign of humanity. (His beloved German shepherd, Blondi, never appears.) He has Geli murdered. He tolerates the presence of Eva Braun only because of her loyalty to him. It's not clear whether he ever gets it on with Eva Braun or not. I think, that if the mores of the time had permitted it, the movie would have given us a homosexual Hitler. As it is, his intolerance for smoking is ridiculed and it's mentioned that he eats nothing but vegetables -- not like a real man, who prefers his meat ripped from the quivering flank of the nearest antelope.
The movie is a trembling and insane wreck, rather like Himself after the assassination attempt. Yet I urge everyone under the age of forty to see it. It will help them to distinguish between Hitler and Charlie Chaplin, if they should ever hear of Charlie Chaplin.
On the one hand, looking at the movie from an educational point of view, it may be of genuine value. Surveys consistently find that Americans, especially young Americans, are a people without history. Focus groups following the release of "Pearl Harbor" ten years ago discovered that an alarming percentage of the intended audience thought that John F. Kennedy was president when the attack occurred. A student at a famous Midwestern university complimented Barbara Tuchman for her lecture of the origins of World War I because he'd "always wondered why the other was called World War II." A survey done in 2010 found that one in five Americans didn't know which country the United States had won its independence from. I could go on but won't. I'll conclude by saying that for far too many of us, this movie, which identifies the guy named Adolf Hitler and suggests the role he played in the story of the 20th century, is invaluable.
Now, as a polished piece of movie making, it's plain terrible. First, Richard Basehart is badly miscast. But then anyone would have been miscast in trying to play a figure from a patriotic cartoon in 1943. There is no "character arc." Hitler begins as a scowling, trigger-tempered character who berates everyone around him, lusts openly to dominate the world, and is beset by indistinct but definite Freudian problems that he steadfastly denies. The only time he smiles -- rather than smirks -- is at the end, when he is completely loony and is ordering divisions around on a map after he's been told they don't exist.
There really isn't much about his conduct of the war. It's more about his inability to love and his paranoia with regard to subordinates. Here's an example of what I mean.
He enters the office of his personal physician and asks gruffly, "So how is your patient today?" "You look pale. The fight with Hindenberg must have been strenuous. Are you still suffering from the headaches?" "I'm not HERE to talk about THAT!" Some of the material is highly conjectural. Hitler develops an affection for his niece, Geli, and when he fails in his attempt to make love to her, she threatens to let the world know that he is not a real man. This is a big mistake on Geli's part. It's also a big mistake on the part of Adolf. Anybody who is physically unable to get it on with the lovely, sixteen-year-old Cordula Trantow, who has scarcely lost her pubescent chubbiness, is in serious hormonal trouble.
But the movie denies Hitler any sign of humanity. (His beloved German shepherd, Blondi, never appears.) He has Geli murdered. He tolerates the presence of Eva Braun only because of her loyalty to him. It's not clear whether he ever gets it on with Eva Braun or not. I think, that if the mores of the time had permitted it, the movie would have given us a homosexual Hitler. As it is, his intolerance for smoking is ridiculed and it's mentioned that he eats nothing but vegetables -- not like a real man, who prefers his meat ripped from the quivering flank of the nearest antelope.
The movie is a trembling and insane wreck, rather like Himself after the assassination attempt. Yet I urge everyone under the age of forty to see it. It will help them to distinguish between Hitler and Charlie Chaplin, if they should ever hear of Charlie Chaplin.