John T. Ryan WELL NOW, UP until recently or knowledge of the film career of Tim Holt was highly limited. Next to the outstanding role as Curtin in THE TREASUE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (Warner Brothers, 1948) our screening of his movie work was confined to his series of "B" Westerns done for RKP Radio Pictures. They were seen on Channel 7 WLS TV in Chicago on weekends, late (very late) programming. The titles were packaged in that series of movies released to television under the umbrella banner of MOVIETIME USA.* SO IT WAS a true surprise when this title appeared recently on Turner Classic Movies. We first saved it and eventually got around to its viewing several days later. Although at first we were just a trifle about it; which is the very definition of prejudice. (You know, Schultz, as in "Pre Judging" something before possessing any first hand knowledge about it.) THE FILM CERTAINLY not only lives up to any virtues that one could desire it to, but it surpasses all those. What could have easily came out as another piece of pulp entertainment/propaganda not only skillfully and with true class manages to rise above such. In several parts of the story, we anticipated some sort of super-heroic feats to save the day; but, they never did come. Anything less than the truth, brutal as it may be, would defeat the purpose of the story.ADAPTED FROM THE book, EDUCATION FOTR DEATH, by Gregor Ziemer, it has a certain degree of the autobiographical throughout. This is supported by the author's having been in charge of a school for American children of the Diplomatic Service people in Germany in the 1930's. The most intelligent screenplay adaptation by Emmet Lavery was doubtless done in strict collaboration with the author.THE SKILLFUL ASSEMBLY of all of these elements, as projected by the created main characters,. makes for a film which is both interesting and yet thought provoking in the most severe manner. And it's all based on real occurrences in the Germany of between the World Wars.NOTE: * This great package of films released to television under the overall title of MOVIETIME USA consisted of mostly (if not entirely of titles from the RKO Radio Pictures backlog. This was first done around 1957 and prints featuring that distinctive MOVIETIME USA title card in place of the RKO cymbal of an Eifel Tower-like Radio Transmitter.

bkoganbing The very much critically acclaimed Hitler's Children is still quite a powerful film today. Potential lovers Tim Holt and Bonita Granville can never quite get together because of the Nazi ideology that Tim espouses.The film has certain similarities to MGM's The Mortal Storm though without the A list cast of that one. The two go to different schools across the street from each other. Bonita is German born, but a naturalize American living with her grandparents while she attends the American school run by Kent Smith. Tim goes to the German all boys school for the new Hitler Youth and it was new when this film's action starts in 1933.It's no accident that this was a boys school for the German youth. The Nazi ideology was firmly patriarchal and eloquently expressed the fact that women were child bearing vessels and nurturers of future Nazis and nothing more. No accident when you see Nazi rally newsreels for the young and old it's an all male cast. Hitler's Children explores that issue far more than most wartime films made by the Allies.Kent Smith has the Nick Carroway narrative part in the story, we see it through his eyes up to the moment he departs for Paris and knowing full well the Nazis will be there shortly.Holt and Granville are an attractive pair. Hitler's Children has aged far better than most American war films of the World War II era.

utgard14 Gripping WW2 movie about a young Gestapo officer (Tim Holt) who must choose between his loyalty to Hitler and the American girl he loves (Bonita Granville). Well-photographed and directed, it's a powerful and fascinating movie that has a lot to chew on for history buffs but is also an entertaining dramatic picture. It was pretty shocking stuff at the time, which led to it being a big hit at the box office. Tim Holt is fantastic in this. Definitely in his top three roles. He was a good actor who's largely forgotten today except among classic film fans. Bonita Granville has one of her meatiest parts here. This is a far cry from Nancy Drew. Kent Smith has a nice role as a sympathetic teacher. He narrates the first part of the movie. Otto Kruger and Hans Conried are two of the Nazis. As with a lot of WW2 era films on IMDb, you'll notice the reviews here are full of the word 'propaganda.' Try to ignore that. The problem isn't with the word itself but some use it to cast aspersions or impugn the honesty of a film. People these days have so many axes to grind and so much anger towards the wrong things. It's unsettling to me but, frankly, I'd rather not unravel that thread.

ackstasis Browsing Hollywood's cinematic output from the early 1940s, you'll come across WWII propaganda of varying degrees. First, there's the patriotic war-time films whose anti-German messages are really only incidental to the chosen subject matter, such as Curtiz's 'Casablanca (1942)' and Wilder's 'Five Graves to Cairo (1943).' Screenwriters, in an effort to show their continued support towards the Allied cause, strove tirelessly to out-do each other with progressively more triumphant and uplifting concluding speeches, and it's often difficult not to feel inspired by their impressive words. On the more extreme end of the scale, just short of the out-and-out propaganda documentaries like Capra's "Why We Fight (1943)" series, are those films that exist solely to extol the virtues of America, and, more importantly, to condemn the evils of Germany. I'm all for patriotism, but watching 'Hitler's Children (1943)' feels like walking into a brain-washing institution to have my individual values and beliefs replaced with those of my government; the cinema had become Hollywood's own re-education clinic.Alas, the film was directed by Edward Dmytryk, and so, like all his films, it's well-made. Despite a somewhat pathetic attempt to blend Tim Holt into a classroom of young adolescents, there's no doubting that the workman-like Dmytryk could put together a scene, and Russell Metty's cinematography is impressive, even including a fogged-out 'Casablanca'-inspired airport runway. But why am I watching this film? Indeed, why did anybody go to watch this film? From a $205,500 budget, 'Hitler's Children' made a staggering $3.355 million in ticket sales, suggesting that audiences were more than willing to sacrifice their money for 80 minutes of unadulterated anti-German sentiment, however overdramatised and clichéd it may be. The problem with watching propaganda, at least for me, is that you treat every new revelation with skepticism, eyes narrowed to scrutinise the latest evil quality attributed to the Nazis. The film may (or may not) be accurate in its depiction of Lebensborn, forced sterilisation and youth corruption, but I'm not buying any of it, certainly not from a film that's so set on convincing me.Who are the Germans? Well, to this film's credit, Germany's entire population is never collectively deemed evil. Rather, the nation's immorality is attributed to the few maniacs coordinating Hitler's sinister regime, with the lower citizens cooperating either through fear or through more active coercion. These generals, smugly-satisfied lackeys to the Fuhrer, are more comically droll than fearsome, cutting short an anti-Nazi tirade by shooting down their two unarmed prisoners rather than simply disconnecting the microphone; they really walked into that one, didn't they? That perfectly innocent children are being tainted from birth is genuinely a frightening (and later a notably Orwellian) idea, but not one that the film explores as effectively as it should have, instead content with concocting a forced romance between a fiercely patriotic German (Holt) and his German-born American sweetheart (Bonita Granville). Kent Smith gives the film's most natural and likable performance as Professor Nichols, an American schoolteacher who is justifiably aghast at Hitler's practices. Oh, it's all adequate entertainment, I suppose, but 'To Be or Not to Be (1942)' was so much more fun.