vincentlynch-moonoi Of all the actors who ever worked in Hollywood, Charles Laughton is the one, perhaps more than any other, that I wouldn't want to meet. He's creepy.But that doesn't mean that I can't see good acting, and his performance here as an initially cowardly teacher/mama's boy is uncanny.The secret love of his life is Maureen O'Hara, a fellow teacher. The role does not provide here with as strong a vehicle as Laughton, but she is very good. George Sanders is a coward of a different sort, who eventually commits suicide in the film (ironically, since that's how he died in real life) Walter Slezak was almost always a gem...and is here...as a Nazi leader, The one disappointment is the performance of Una O'Connor. O'Connor had a reputation for playing off the way mother-type characters...and she certainly does here. But, what was needed was a far lighter hand in the role. It's not a comedy, but she seemed to think it was.I was delighted to see this out on DVD-R, and immediately purchased it for my DVD collection, because it is one of the best propaganda films of World War II. Una O'Connor as Mrs. Emma Lory

sol1218 ***SPOILERS*** Overly talkative with almost no action WWII era film about the Nazis attempt to brainwash a local population in an unnamed French town in the glories of the Aryan race and eternal wisdom of their leader Adolph Hitler. Of course the people in town know that's all BS but have no choice but to go along with it in order to keep from being sent to the nearest Nazi concentration camp or gestapo firing squad.It when acts of sabotage is committed against the occupying German troops that the man in charge German Army Major Eric Von Keller, Walter Slezak, takes the gloves off and threatens to takes hostages and have them shot if the sabotage continues.The person who''s behind all this is hot headed Paul Martin, Kent Smith, who despite his out front love of the German occupiers, he's alway seen partying and drinking with them, secretly hates their guts and does everything to make their stay in town as uncomfortable as possible. Including dropping a bomb on a German army military car and killing two of its occupants.As things turn out Maj. Von Keller has a bunch of Frenchmen taken hostage and threatened to have them shot at sunrise if the killer of the two German solders doesn't give himself up.Two of those held hostage by the Germans are school teacher Albert Lory, Charles Laughton, and history and philosophy professor Sorol, Philip Merivale, who later met his end before a German firing squad. It's then that things get real interesting in that the wanted man's-Paul Martin-sexy sister Louise, Maureen O'Hera, works together with Albert as a French History teacher whom Albert is madly in love with.As things turn out it's Albert's mom Mrs. Emma Lory, Una O'Connor, who fingers Paul as the bomber by telling Louise's fiancée train superintendent George Lambert,George Sanders, that it was Paul who snuck into the Lory home with a wounded hand after he escaped from the German Army dragnet after doing in the two German solders. Lambert the butt kissing and gutless wonder that he is in order to save his behind puts the finger on Paul,by reporting him to major Von Keller, and at the same time hoping that no one in town, especially Louise, would ever find that out!It's when Paul is finally killed in a shootout with the Germans that Albert is released from prison which has Louise suspect that he fingered her brother in order to gain his freedom. The fact that Albert had nothing to do with Paul's death,in fact it was his concerned mom Mrs. Emma Lory who was responsible for it, made his go down to the train depot to confront George Lambert who he in fact knew was the person,after Mrs.Lory revealed that Paul was the mysterious saboteur, who fingered Louise's now dead brother Paul. As things turned out George, when forced by Major Von Keller to turn over his girlfriend Louise to the gestapo for aiding and abetting her brother Paul's escape, blew his brains out moments before and enraged Albert got to his office.***SPOILES*** Arrested for George's murder Albert decides to for once in his cowardly life to take a stand and not only takes responsibility for George's murder,in killing him in his mind not in real life, and let the chips fall where they may; Which is a volley of bullets from a German firing squad. The movie gets a bit ridicules with Albert getting all the time he needed to make a fool of not only the Germans but their French collaborators as well with the German soldiers and authorities at his trial doing nothing to stop him acting as if their brain dead or suffering from the advanced stages of Alzheimer's Disease. With Albert going on endlessly on the stand with how the townspeople should stand up for their rights and that George did the right thing in blowing his brains out was so surreal and unbelievable, in that not one of the Germans attending his trial bothered to stop him from talking, that it just destroyed every point he tried to make in his long winded speech. One of those points was that he was not allowed freedom of speech that he claimed the German authorities took away from him and his fellow Frenchmen and women. ****MAJOR SPOILER***The ending was a bit bizarre in that Albert was found innocent of murdering George yet is arrested and possibly shot, off camera, for moments later reading to his students the Bill or Right and US Constitution! And even more bizarre after Albert is taken away Louise picks up where he left off, reading to her student class, within earshot of the German soldiers and gestapo the very same thing without being arrested and put before a firing squad! P.S Both Charles Laughton and Maureen O'Hara were united in "This Land is Mine" some four years after they starred together in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" where they played very similar parts. The homely non attractive and deformed hunchback guy-Charles Laughton-in love with the beautiful hot blooded and sexy gypsy girl-Maureen O'Hara.

Robert D. Ruplenas I can vaguely remember seeing this movie on television years ago, and recalled it as a movie with an anti-Nazi message. Seeing it again recently, and with a lifetime of reading behind me, I realize it has further depths of meaning. Despite the pretense of being set "somewhere in Europe," it is beyond doubt that Renoir had France very specifically in mind. He was a French émigré, and it's clear that he has a message for his countrymen about the great number of them that chose to collaborate with the Germans. But the film is not a sledgehammer, in that the Germans are not portrayed as the stereotypical jackbooted thugs. Their official voice in the film, the officer played by Walter Slezak, has a silky sort of charm and shows how easy it can be to cooperate in the name of so many things - peace, order, stability, etc. etc. Laughton's final courtroom speech has so many specific references to the situation in France that it cannot be interpreted as other than such. And the final finishing touch is Laughton's last lesson to his students before being taken away - he reads from the "Declaration of the Rights of Man" from the French Revolution.Aside from that it is an excellent story very well told, and the production values are extremely high - the print I saw looked excellent even after 60-some years. The cast, of course, is superb, with Laughton, Slezak, and Maureen O'Hara. Particularly good is George Sanders, in a role very different from his stereotype as the suave and debonair cynic. The whole "mama's boy" aspect of Laughton's character is a bit heavy-handed, but it's still to watch Una O'Connor as his mother (you just can't help recalling her tavern woman's part in "The Invisible Man").Thsi is not just an excellent movie, but an interesting historical artifact as well.

MartinHafer This film was set in an unnamed nation that was just conquered by the Nazis. Given the statue of the WWI soldier at the beginning of the movie, it probably was intended as either Belgium or France (given the style uniform on the statue). However, in an odd Hollywood decision, the cast was made up of a wide variety of actors and accents--such as the very American Kent Smith, the Irish Maureen O'Hara, Englishman Charles Laughton and the very cultured George Sanders (who hailed from Russia from English parents). It was also confusing because the country was just conquered and yet by this point the Americans were apparently in the war (meaning it most likely occurred in 1942 or 43)--and no nation fit this pattern. All were fine actors, however, and the excellent writing made me forget about all this.The story of this fictional nation is all about collaboration versus resistance. Some are obviously evil and seem to like the Germans--or at least look to get rich off the suffering of their own people. Some appear to be collaborators but are actually brave resistance fighters. And Laughton is a nice case--a very wimpy 'everyman' who eventually finds his strength of character through the course of the film.While some might find this all a bit hokey, the film was an excellent piece of positive propaganda. It must have been incredibly rousing when it debuted and according to IMDb it set box office records. Good acting and a nice script make this one of the better films of its type--well worth watching and memorable--especially for Laughton's fine characterization as well as his impressive speech near the end.