JoeKulik In general, I don't believe that any government has the right to use a legitimate Art Form, including Cinema, as a vehicle for propaganda, but most times I can live with it. This film, however, is S-O-O-O Filled with trite, "over the top", and even laughable propaganda that it comes across more as a Farcical Comedy rather than a Suspense Drama for me here in 2016.So, Thorndyke aims a rifle at Hitler for "sport" rather than because he intended to kill him? (LOL - Give me a break, OK??) Why the Germans would expend all the time & resources to track down this one guy all over England is never made clear, & is extremely unrealistic. That Thorndyke never acts on the fact that Jerry is obviously in love with him comes across as him being Just TOO Stupid to realize how she feels, rather than any chivalry or gallantry on his part. Only an IDIOT would've allowed Jerry to stay in that same apartment after he knew that the Nazis tracked him there. The outrageous ending, with Thorndyke literally deserting his military unit so that he can now hunt Hitler "for real" is from Deep Outer Space, or even from an alternate Bizarro Universe. Thorndyke living in a cave while wearing a suit & tie... Well, you get the idea.If I was a Brit watching this in 1941, I would've been worried for my country because of FOOLS like Thorndyke defending it, rather than to be inspired to feel Patriotic. On the other hand, it might have been a "wash" since the Germans were depicted as being Equally Moronic.I still gave it a "6" though, because it was an entertaining & suspenseful film, if you sent your brain on vacation while viewing it, that is.Although this film is interesting for several reasons, overall I found it to be an insult to my intelligence. ... [email protected]

funkyfry This film wastes no time getting started -- no speeches, no anthems, no introduction. We simply see a man (Walter Pidgeon) maneuvering between Nazis in some forested region. When he finally reaches the cliff, his destination, we see him expertly assemble a scope rifle and train its cross-hairs on Der Fuhrer himself. One can just about hear the 1941 audience shouting at the screen, "Pull the trigger! Pull the trigger!" Something goes wrong, of course, and our aristocratic hero spends the rest of the film on the run from nefarious Nazis led by George Sanders and John Carradine.Pidgeon is unusually animated in this film, and there are a lot of reaction shots of him which bear a similarity to Lang's work with Spencer Tracy (they hated each other) in his American masterpiece "Fury." Carradine and Sanders are suitably nasty, a lot of fun too watch (too much fun? perhaps that's a debate for another day). Joan Bennett shows up as a prostitute who falls for Pidgeon's man on the lam, exposing herself to fatal danger in order to help him and win his heart in return. Her accent is terrible but her performance is passable.Lang handles the suspense of the chase scenes around foggy London-town with great skill and style. The only real problem that I had with the film was in a lot of the dialog between Pidgeon and Bennett; Pidgeon always has a sort of paternal edge, but in this case it is more of a patronizing razor's edge. Hilariously, Bennett bursts into tears when Pidgeon chooses the couch over her bed, and Pidgeon holds her head and calls her a "poor, dear little child", or words greatly to that effect. There are a lot of those scenes. Certainly we're missing the vital and overtly sexual Bennett of later collaborations such as the infamous "Scarlet Street." In the Lang world, Bennett must either play a saintly whore or a predatory whore, and no room in between for argument or confusion.The climax becomes a little bit weird, but the film deserves props for actually allowing the Bennett character to die. The fact that her death, as well as the torture scenes involving Pidgeon earlier in the film, are shown strictly off-screen, may represent a compromise between producer Zanuck and Joe Breen's office, which was extremely cautious about anti-Nazi propaganda prior to the official U.S. entry into WWII. This is a significant film in the development of U.S. propaganda -- recent refugee Lang wants to pull no punches, but in retrospect (or compared to his later "Hangmen Also Die") the film's treatment of Nazi villains is almost light-handed, Hollywood villain-ish.Note, by the way, how Lang manages to get Sanders' monocle and the glasses of several other German spies to gleam menacingly in the scarce lighting -- Spielberg would later use this effect in his nostalgically anti-Nazi films. Considering how much attention Lang paid to his own monocle, it's hardly an accident or a casual effect.I was interested in the scene where Bennett and Pidgeon go into a jeweler's shop to buy her a hat-pin (the fatal hat-pin, as it turns out). After entering, the distinctly Jewish-looking shopkeeper speaks to them with a heavy German accent, and Pidgeon and Bennett's characters are visibly disturbed for a moment, then continue on with the purchase. This man may have been a refugee from the Nazis, but his accent makes him momentarily suspect. I believe Lang probably included this brief bit of business as a way of expressing his own frustration with the racism that was inevitably being directed towards German émigrés during the propaganda-heavy times leading up to the conflict.

Petri Pelkonen It's 1939, a little before the World War II.British captain Alan Thorndike is in Bavaria, when suddenly he gets Adolf Hitler in his gunsight.He doesn't try to kill him, but he gets captured.He gets to flee to London, but he's not safe even there.Man Hunt (1941) is a wartime thriller from Fritz Lang.This was the first of four anti-Nazi pictures of this Jewish director, who fled Germany into exile in the mid 1930's.The movie is based on Geofrey Household's 1939 novel Rogue Male.Walter Pidgeon gives a terrific performance in the lead.Joan Bennett is wonderful as the female lead Jerry.George Sanders makes a great villain as Major Quive-Smith.John Carradine is great as Mr. Jones.Roddy McDowall is marvelous as Vaner.There are many exciting moments in this movie, like the events in the subway tunnel.How the boy helps Alan on the ship is pretty touching.Also the love story portrayed there is really sweet.

oOgiandujaOo_and_Eddy_Merckx For me the central point of what is a multifaceted movie is one of ethics. Captain Thorndike is a big game hunter of repute who never shoots his prey, he gets it in his sights and then recognises that he's "won the game". He's essentially an anarchist in that he talks at several points about being against all forms of force (politically speaking some types of anarchists generally talk in terms of the path of least coercion). He is faced with a decision, which fortunately, few of us in the country where most of this film is shot (the UK), have to make any more. When one is faced with extreme murderous brutality (the Nazis), extinguishing personal freedoms, should one fight back with lethal force? People have called this aspect of the movie propagandist, a manipulative attempt to get the USA to join the war, but I think Fritz Lang poses this question in earnest and with his heart on his sleeve. Despite our distance from questions of such magnitude (the war against operations such as Al Qaeda has effectively been assigned to bureaus or outsourced, and do not ask these questions of us on an individual basis), it's a question which I found very involving.Fritz Lang's movie has in common with Powell & Pressburger's film from the same year, the 49th Parallel, that both treatments of the Nazis display a great deal of respect, leaving you to question on some level whether they don't deserve to win. Thorndike is both a rank below, and Lang suggests, an inferior hunter to, his nemesis the Nazi Major Quive-Smith. Only by breaking through British class barriers and finding love will Thorndike be able to triumph. Reference is made to the policy of appeasement and to appallingly stupid British officialdom, more evidence of a movie which is far from a stupid and absurdly partisan propaganda piece.Some of the movie comes off as a little odd, such as a repeated reference to the Nazis returning to decapitation as method of execution, which seems rather a minutia given that the UK and US were both hugely fond of capital punishment at the time. The love story creaks a bit and makes the middle of the movie somewhat of a longueur. Contrivances in the plot are acceptable, but may cross a threshold for some.On an aesthetic and visceral level there are some great tracking shots, and the Nazis have been appropriately fetishised. Popular modern belief that behind each swastika there was a caring sharing yet misguided person is hugely erroneous, death-worshipping pagans, members of what was a hugely ideological cult, being more accurate in my view. The shot of Quive-Smith and goons in Jerry's apartment is high-calibre work reminiscent of the expressionist silent work of the director's earlier years. Personally I found the fist fight hugely brutal and exhilarating, which is very rare in a movie of that period, or indeed any other. In terms of a "...from hell's heart I stab at thee" level of gusto, the ending of the movie is as electrifying as the famous ending to 13 Rue Madeleine.By the by Quive-Smith is an enormously interesting character. There's huge testament to Lang's subtlety in the Kehlsteinhaus (Eagle's Nest) scene. An outwardly confident character with no hint of turmoil stands next to a lampshade where votive music in Old German is written, "...nur deine güt hilft, mir aus den nöthen." ("... only you can help me out of my suffering"). In the next scene he is backgrounded by a sculpture of Saint Sebastian pierced through with arrows. This a wounded man, in need of putting out of his misery. Lang's suggestion regarding Nazis generally? Obviously a man of genius who snuck a lot of stuff about fate in under the radar.