User Reviews

Director: STEVE SEKELY. Screenplay: Houston Branch. Story: Frank Bentick Wisbar. Photography: Mack Stengler. Film editor: Richard Currier. Art director: Dave Milton. Music director: Edward J. Kay. Dialogue director: Howard Erickson. Assistant director: William Strohbach. Sound recording: Tom Lambert. Associate producer: Jeffrey Bernerd. Producer: Herman Millakowsky. Executive producer: Trem Carr.

Copyright by Monogram Pictures Corporation. on 12 November 1943. No recorded New York opening. U.S. release: 10 January 1944. Australian release through British Empire Films: 16 November 1944. 8 reels. 6,576 feet. 72 minutes.

Alternative title: HITLER'S WOMEN.

SYNOPSIS: A German woman (Gail Patrick) returns to her homeland during WW2. Horrified at the degraded status of women in Germany, she seeks to overthrow the regime.

COMMENT: A dated wartime propaganda story by Frank Wisbar is given a new lease of life here by the extraordinarily imaginative direction of Steve Sekely (of all people). True, the players offer no more than token conviction, the sets and costumes are seedy, the photography often drab.

But producer Millakowsky has invested this offering with more production values than any two Monogram thrillers combined. Sekely has taken full advantage of this opportunity with a display of involved tracking and crane shots, masked camera set-ups and other highly ingenious effects.

And we loved the script's unique device of reprising the story to ask a leading question at the finale.

This passionate example of mid-war propaganda features an excellent performance by the always riveting Gail Patrick, playing a German woman returning after years when her husband is summoned to enlist in the army and finds herself pushed into a position of authority that she doesnt want. As the commander of a group of young Nazi women, she finds herself objecting to the rigid anti-human rules where old ladies get no respect from her granddaughter (encouraged by the older women in the Nazi party to keep S.S. officers "pleased", priests are arrested for trying to perform Christian baptisms and because of an eye defect, a sensitive young woman is told she can't marry her S.S. officer boyfriend. Foe Patrick, she finds that the return of her injured husband isn't enough to have her marriage dissolved so she can be forced to marry someone else who will father wtrong Nazi sons.

Disturbing on so many levels, this gives hints of the courage of certain women, willing to stand up and fight for human rights and basic dignity, facing death with courage and a sense of hope that evil will be eradicated.

That's Nancy Kelly of "The Bad Seed" as Toni, the young lady afflicted with bad eye site (and ears deemed to be too low), suffering a nervous breakdown and being tortured before she makes the ultimate sacrifice. Gisela Werbisek is heartbreaking as the old lady who is disgusted by her granddaughter's trampy behavior and finds herself jailed for trying to prevent S.S. officers from getting their jollies. H.B. Warner is profound as the seemingly sole surviving priest whose profession seems to have no meaning in modern Germany.

Veteran actress Gertrude Michael is officious, imperious and humorless as Patrick's commanding officer, her voice rough not only around the ages but aging her and making her appwar soulless. This shows how aging generations look on silently (and cowardly) in disgust at the extremism of the flaming youtg manipulated by ecil. It builds up to a great conclusion that had me cheering. Without a doubt, a real triumph for Monogram that could have been longer.