ironhorse_iv One of the most unusual U.S. WWII propaganda films, Hitler, Dead or Alive isn't your typical wartime film. This movie is so over the top that it's so bad, it's good. Inspired on an actual true event, in which a businessman promised a reward of one million dollars to anyone to bring Adolf Hitler to justice, dead or alive. The movie took the idea and place a story about three gangsters, Steve Maschick (Ward Bond), Hans "Dutch" Havermann (Warren Hymer), and Joe "The Book" Conway (Paul Fix) accepting that challenge. Bond was the sturdy rock of the gang, Hymer the comic relief and Fix the brains. Seeing how film noir and Warner Bros gangster films were popular at the time; it was no surprised that the film director Nick Grinde & writer Sam Neuman made the controversial choice of portraying American criminals as heroes than the soldiers fighting overseas at the time. It's kinda upsetting in a way, as hundreds of servicemen were dying in the battlefields during the making of this film. You can tell that the movie is so absurd and preposterous, that the movie has a series of improbable scenes that lead them to Hitler (Bobby Watson) like jail-breaking and hijacking a plane. The gangsters are lump-heads idiots who somehow found a way, not to get themselves killed within 10 minutes in Germany. The Nazis in the film are portray like Col. Klink dummies, allowing them to last that long into 70 minute film. In real life, this movie would had ended, once they paratroop into Germany. The movie is full of dumb things happening like Ward Bond taking down an airplane with a tommy gun, while flying. Do not question the probability of one man standing in the open door of a flying aircraft and successfully shooting down another plane. Don't ask. Another highlight of the film is the gangsters shaving off Hitler's mustache and cut off that big lock of greasy hair that hangs in his face. It was funny as hell. The movie recent got back in the public eye, due to that director Quentin Tarantino quoting that he got some influence from this movie to help him make his masterpiece film, 2009's Inglourious Basterds. You can honestly, see the influences, as both movies have Americans going behind enemy lines, causing chaos like prison breaks, and trying to kill Hitler. There are also the same type of female German characters that helped the Americans get closer to Hitler, as in this film, it's Countess/ Dancer Greta (Fee 'Faye' Wall). What a dame! More dangerous than a pocketful of loose razor blades. The movie also influence Mel Brooks, whom got the idea for 1967's The Producers. The acting is mediocre. Ward Bond's pathos-laden delivery is laughable. The studio had to make due with Bruce Edwards who may look the part, but can't convincingly read dialogue. Bobby Watson, Hollywood's #1 Hitler. Between 1942 and 1962 Watson was cast a record ten times in the role of Best Fascist Dictator. Call about being typecast. Gees. He sounds like a cartoon, German stereotype. The professional good actors were either off fighting or unattainable due to budgetary limitations. The movie is bit dated even at the time. There was a pre-infamous Dachau scene; that was a bit haunting. It really shows that Americans really were that clueless on what was really happening in concentration camp around Europe. The quasi-comic tone of the film turns serious at the end, when a desperate Hitler got a weird irony death. I love that speech by the SS guard. "To think that Germany could produce a piece of filth like you". It made my day. The movie did had a bittersweet ending, but it was needed for the time. It still present a powerful war-time message. The movie had a low production budget, as there wasn't much action in this supposedly action pack film. Germany sure looks a lot like Southern California. Most of the sequences were taken from stock footage that didn't match well. The movie hasn't aged well. Since it's in the public domain, most DVDs that copy or transfer this footage had fuzzy or grainy condition. It's hard to find, a great copy of this. The audio is at less decent. You can also find this movie on Youtube or the Internet for free. Overall: Its hammer-over-the-head patriotism is indeed funny. It's a so bad, it's good type of a watch makes it appealing.

winner55 Not quite as awful as some would make it out - but definitely in the 'so bad it's funny' category. In fact, it could have been worse - I smiled a lot but I never laughed out loud as I do with Ed Wood films.There's nothing credible about the story whatsoever - no, don't even try. At one point Hitler gets his mustache shaved off, and people who have known him for years can no longer recognize him! Theshoddy sets and preposterous plot devices have been remarked by other reviewers, why belabor such points. And Ward Bond's performance isn't simply "over the top," it's shot out to the stratosphere. There are some funny lines, and the German accents are Monty-Pythonesque caricatures of human speech. The first half drags a bit, but the second half moves along at a fair clip.One other piece of plotting non-sequitor: The narrator of the story makes out that he can report a dead hero's last words - unfortunately, nobody present at the death could possibly report these to him. Is he just clairvoyant? And that hero - racketeer, bank-robber, murderer - "A great man," one character calls him, "a great American" says another. Hmmm....Oh well; one positive piece of propaganda does show up toward the end, when the Nazis line a group of children up against a wall and shoot them. A bit of a brutal throw-away in a film like this, but since this is really something Nazis did, it was important to communicate it to American audiences, so they could get a glimpse at their real enemy - which, since this is the point of the film, made this brief brutal moment worth the whole effort, I guess.

theowinthrop Reportedly, in April 1865, upon hearing the dreadful news from Washington, D.C., Benjamin Disraeli made the comment that "Assassination has never changed history!". A brave statement, but dubious. Lincoln's murder took a first rate political mind and spirit out of an office that needed him, and put in a misguided, ill prepared man with some sense of his office's importance. The result was that Lincoln's hope to restore the Union with a benign peace was wrecked by the inept President Andrew Johnson and the Radical Republican Congress which sought a harsher peace on the South. John Wilkes Booth had changed history indeed.Same happened in 44 B.C. when Julius Caesar was killed. Same happened in 1914 when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was killed and World War I broke out. Assassination does effect history.In 1942 two Czech patriots were parachuted into their homeland to carry out a mission. They did - they killed Reinhart Heydrich, the "Hangman" "Protector" of Bohemia, and creator of the Final Solution. Heydrich was in a car that was blown up, and it is pleasant to announced that the creep actually died from being skewered by eight heavy springs in the seat that he was seated in - it took him over a week to die. Given his involvement in the Holacaust and other atrocities, one can only say he died the way he deserved. Unfortunately, the Germans destroyed two villages, and killed hundreds of people in retaliation. Because of that the Allies did not carry out any other assassination plots in Europe against Nazis.But the notion of killing Nazi leaders was instilled in the air, and I think that is why this film was made soon after. To Americans Heydrich was vaguely known (after the destruction of Lidice and the other village interest in the "Hangman" led to two films being made: Fritz Lang's HANGMEN ALSO DIE and Douglas Sirk's HITLER'S MADMAN). HITLER, DEAD OR ALIVE is not a good film - it is really rather stupid. The idea of hiring three American criminals to kill Der Fuhrer is outlandish. But to be fair, this idea of criminals fighting the good fight against Nazis was fairly common in Hollywood films. Nazis never fought fairly, so we needed someone who also fought unfairly. Witness Humphrey Bogart and his co-horts in ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT (against Conrad Veidt) or Alan Ladd in THIS GUN FOR HIRE (admittedly against traitors working for Japan, not Germany) or LUCKY JORDAN. Still, if you want to kill the most vicious government leader in history, why use three gunman instead of working out a plan with the government. So if you have problems with this, you will have problems with the entire film.The only thing I liked about this movie was when Bobs Watson (as Hitler) makes a comment to a cohort that he eventually plans to doublecross Mussolini. Perhaps it might have happened sooner or later, but Der Fuhrer actually had a high regard for Il Duce, and later in the war sent his leading special agent, Otto Skorzeny, into Italy to rescue the imprisoned ex-head of the government. Still it was amusing to hear that. Otherwise, the film was a total wash-out.

bkoganbing If you were looking to take out a contract on Hitler, would you hire the trio of Ward Bond, Paul Fix, and Warren Hymer? I'm glad this film is preserved if only for the fact it is the best example of World War II propaganda film run totally amuck. I can't believe it was taken seriously even back in 1943.The plot simply is that an unknown, but wealthy American businessman hires these three gangsters to kill Hitler and shorten the war. Clever guy that Hitler is, he makes frequent use of doubles to prevent assassination attempts. But the intrepid trio reaches someone in the underground who knows that Hitler has a scar on his upper lip from the aborted Beer Hall Putsch. They eventually get the real Hitler and identify him by shaving off the mustache he's grown to hide it. And the S.S. coming to rescue him, shoot him as he is trying to escape because nobody recognizes Hitler without the mustache.Two things of note. Warren Hymer made a career of playing dumb henchmen and I can't believe anyone would give him so vital a mission. And Ward Bond has the distinction of being in seven of the hundred greatest films voted on by the American Film Institute, most of any thespian. Hard to believe his career survived this.By all means get this if you want to see where Mel Brooks got the idea for The Producers.