Hangmen Also Die |  | Director: Fritz Lang
Actors: Brian Donlevy, Walter Brennan, Hans Heinrich von Twardowski, Anna Lee, Nana Bryant
Studio: Kino Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $29.95
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Rating:  15 reviews
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD, NTSC
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 0
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
DVD Layers: 1
DVD Sides: 1
Picture Format: Academy Ratio
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 134 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: KICD01432D
ISBN: 630568393X
UPC: 738329014322
EAN: 9786305683933
Theatrical Release Date: April 15, 1943
Release Date: January 18, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com
Because it's been little seen, and because people tend to shrug off contemporaneous World War II films as "propaganda," Hangmen Also Die has never received its due. It's a brilliant, riveting movie, made in response to the atrocities committed against the Czech people following the assassination of Reichsprotektor Heydrich, Hitler's personal "hangman." Under Fritz Lang's ferociously stylized direction, the duel of wits between the Nazi occupiers and the Prague underground--"a ghost army sworn to haunt them till their blood runs cold"--becomes the stuff of legend: virtually another installment of Die Nibelungen, and a dynamic variation on the urban phantasmagoria of the Mabuse films and Spione and M. There is propaganda--but when the blood-curdling rhetoric comes from Bertolt Brecht, no less, in his only movie script for an American producer, who's to complain? Lang was Brecht's full collaborator, however, and the narrative is a steel trap closing on everyone. Every act of charity may potentially doom an entire family, and the resistance fighters--especially Brian Donlevy's doctor-assassin--agonize over their culpability in jeopardizing hundreds of innocents taken hostage in reprisal for Heydrich's shooting. The moral-ethical duality extends to the casting, and our response to it. Apart from Walter Brennan, astonishingly "Brechtian" as a Czech professor of history, the "good guys" are ho-hum Central Casting types while the Nazis--evil incarnate--are juicily portrayed by a passel of German-Jewish émigrés (Alexander Granach, Reinhold Schünzel, Ludwig Donath, et al.), all savoring the opportunity to skewer their own oppressors and to act up a German Expressionist storm in their Hollywood exile. Superbly photographed by James Wong Howe. --Richard T. Jameson
Product Description
Noir meets wwii propaganda in this tale of paranoia and betrayal during the nazi occupation of eastern europe. Studio: Kino International Release Date: 01/18/2000 Starring: Brian Donlevy Dennis Okeefe Run time: 134 minutes
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 15
CZECH OBSTRUCTIONISTS October 12, 2009
Kimberly Glunz (Georgia & Oklahoma (by turns))
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
"Hangmen" is a 1943 production by 3 German exiles: Bertolt Brecht (Unacknowledged writer), Fritz Lang (Director and Producer and co-scripter), Arnold Pressburger (no relation to Emeric Pressburger of Powell/Pressburger fame) as "Presenter" (whatever that is). The starring roles by: Brian Donlevy as Dr. Svoboda, Anna Lee as Nasha Novotny, Walter Brenna as Professor Novotny, Gene Lockhart as the turn-coat Czaka, and Alexander Granach is Inspector Gruber.
First off, as to the technical aspects of the film, let me just say that there are lots of shadows and collateral camera angles - so enjoyed by those of us who love film noir - shot by the renowned James Wong Howe. I have heard that Mr. Howe's talent was often wasted on films requiring less ability, but he certainly employed his skills on this movie. I'm not proficient enough on this subject to elaborate any further, so I'll leave the subject by saying that every scene visually held my interest.
As to content: this is the story of the murder of the infamous number two man in the SS, who was also the "co-architect" of the Holocaust, Reinhard Heydrich. [Side-note: if you could live in even worse infamy, Heydrich was also the chief official at the Wannsee Conference held January 20, 1942, at a lovely chalet in a suburb of Berlin. On that ill-fated day, Heydrich told the officials of the Nazi Regime to comply with Himmler's "Final Solution" of the Jews, whose numbers were becoming problems in the concentration camps. One of the worst solutions, of course, was the inclusion of the gas chambers. If you haven't seen the move "Conspiracy" with Kenneth Branaugh that documents this meeting, you really should do yourself a favor and rent it...oh, or buy it from Amazon!]
Where the heck was I? Oh, yes, Heydich was the Reich "Protector" of German-occupied Prague and was known as the "Hangman" due to his cruelty to the Czech people. Well, all we ever see OF hEYDRICH in this movie is right at the beginning where, before an august-looking company of officials, he is shouting orders to work, work, work ("Arbeit macht frei", after all, nicht wahr!) these "slaves" and not to pay too much money doing it. Also, he notified them that they all needed to learn German. The man who played Heydrich (Hans Heinrich von Twardowski) did a bang-up job. Death, you knew, would look good on him!
Now to the story: the beginning - with its contrived looking village set, and the Brooklyn accents of the Czechs - belies the powerfully mesmerizing story to come. We soon see a suspicious looking man roaming around (a man who has just assassinated Heydrich, played by Donlevy) who encounters a young lady (Anna Lee) who shields him from the SS. She doesn't know who he is but, evidentially, the SS is the enemy and citizens naturally protect anyone fleeing them.
The assassin turns out to be Dr. Svoboda, and the young lady is Nasha Novotny. Needing refuge, Svoboda is invited to stay the evening with Nasha's family. Her father, Professor Novotny (Brennan), is an old revolutionary himself and you just get the feeling that he knows Svoboda is the Heydrich assassin. When the SS comes to round up the "usual suspects" (the intellectuals, dissidents, farmers, gamblers, air breathers) for investigation and later murder, they take Nasha's father not Svoboda. Herr Professor Novotny refuses to tell the officers that Svoboda is the man they want, much to daughter Nasha's chagrin.
For the remainder of the story, Professor Novotny remains in custody and serves as a carrot to dangle in front of Nasha by the Gestapo. The Gestapo chief, Herr Inspector Gruber (played by Alexander Granach, who portrayed Kopalski in one my favorites, "Ninotchka") keeps toying and almost succeeding in getting Nasha to succumb to the desire to free her father by turning state's evidence and giving up the identity of the assassin. Her community (and her father) tell her she must never enable the Gestapo, but this proved to be her film-long struggle. Unfortunately, she just gives enough information away that eventually Gruber uncovers the assassin.
This story is quite involved and I can't go into all the intricate details. But, suffice it to say, the informant falls into his own carefully devised trap, the Lee character matures and becomes a loyal citizen of her country, and the Gestapo gets duped through the most carefully woven set of lies you have ever imagined. All these machinations were successful because the Czechs were united. "The oppressor is always wrong", I suspect, was their motto. It was wonderful to see the power of such a love of land and nation despite the personal injury suffered.
As to the acting: it was fairly indifferent. The characters weren't uninteresting except as compared to the story. This film was completely story-driven, in my opinion. The only actor I would have put up for an academy award was Alexander Granach who played the profligate, rogue SS man.
This truly is a fantastic film, and I can't wait to see it again. I know I missed a lot at first viewing. I did catch how powerful the resistance movement was and how extremely clever and determined it had to be. I thought that I knew this having done some reading on the subject. But (perhaps because of my own lukewarm passions) each new portrayal amazes me yet again.
 Life During Wartime September 2, 2009
Tom Without Pity (A Major Midwestern Metropolis)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
HANGMEN ALSO DIE,is a film directed by Fritz Lang released in 1943 I have given this wonderful movie a five star rating for more than one reason and here they are:
This movie was timely and served to keep anti-nazi morale up
at a time when there was was much uncertainty about the outcome of the European war.
What now seems like an inevitable victory for the Allies was anything but inevitable appearing back them.
The marvelous directing of HANGMEN ALSO DIE by the great Fritz Lang.
Not only does Mr. Lang use his skills in a enthusiastic and forceful manner, especially when dealing with the Nazis, he knows when to be restrained and use a touch of light humor to make the unbearable seem almost, at times tolorable.
This film is based on historical events, yes, "the hangman" really was assassinated, and the exciting story still has time for romance and various
vignettes illustrating how life was for the people under the Nazi yoke.....not to mention how fatal it could be for even the most innoffensive citizens.
HANGMEN ALSO DIE illustrates how when a dictatorship reigns, it's the rats and the informers who prosper. And very often, as is the final case in this movie, the information is maliciously and fatally false.
Losing your personal freedom is akin to death in many ways. The only difference is you may still have a chance to regain your freedom, death, of course, is the ultimate finality.
Rarely have I seen so many fine performances by a wonderful cast of people who are usually supporting actors. Walter Brennan, the marvelous Anna Lee and so many others. Especially the actors cast as Nazi officers,
many if not most I think it would be fair to assume were anti-Nazi refugees
and ironicaly are hired to portray those that they loathed. And they do a crackerjack job of it,too.
It is I think the best underground resistance WWII film that I have seen, even better than THIS LAND IS MINE, directed by Jean Renior, which was released the same year as HANGMEN ALSO DIE.
I urge anyone who has even the slightest interest in the European war to watch this excellent movie, it brings to the screen realistic portrayals of life under the Nazi heel. HANGMEN ALSO DIE is not a documentary but it is a fictional story woven on the loom of historical fact and even to this day an inspiring film.
It's time to get this movie back into the theatres! June 1, 2009
Patrick Henry (Virginia)
Yes, it's time to bring this movie and others of the era back into the theatres all across the U.S. Having been released in 1943; now some sixty-six years later it's time for the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the greatest generation (WWII era) to begin to understand some cold hard facts about the insidious nature of taking the quiet path to tyranny.
Hangmen Also Die June 22, 2007
John Farr
One of the finest anti-Nazi thrillers to emerge from the WWII period, Lang's noirish approach to the propaganda film involves cloak-and-dagger intrigue, sinister interrogations, and plenty of light-and-shadow atmospherics, courtesy of camera great James Wong Howe. Such elements were second nature to German ex-pat Lang, director of "M" and "The Big Heat," and his impeccable direction of numerous character actors--a cab driver (Lionel Stander) and a fruit merchant (Sarah Padden), in particular--adds to the visceral power of this story of resistance. Brennan is also excellent playing against type as a radical patriot. See "Hangmen" or die trying.
Hangmen Also Die: The Lesson is Evil Exists February 5, 2007
Martin Asiner (Jersey City, NJ)
When Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich was assassinated by Czech patriots in 1942, the immediate result was the liquidation of the entire village of Lidice. Every citizen was murdered and the town itself reduced to rubble. The enormity of this crime was not made apparent at the time, but in HANGMEN ALSO DIE, director Fritz Lang and screenwriter Bertold Brecht created a film that dramatises the essential events in a manner that suffers from some deliberately heavy acting but in no way subtracts from its incredible power.
Brian Donlevy in surely the flattest of his career sleepwalks through his role as Dr. Svoboda, the assassin. One would think that the ethical issues of deciding whether to give himself up for execution or allowing innocent hostages to be shot should have occupied more of Donlevy's interpretation of the assassin. Donlevy does little more than allow others to debate the need to weigh one life against hundreds of others when there are larger issues at stake. To director Lang's credit, he allows the film to address the tricky issue of whether there can even be larger issues than human lives. Lang comes firmly down on the side that in the larger horror of war some issues of right and justice must trump the lives of those who pay for the right of others to debate these ethical dilemmas. Walter Brennan as Professor Novotny shows the same lack of dramatic fire that afflicts Donlevy. In fact, it becomes clear that the only characters who show any pizzazz are the Nazis. Some critics have suggested that this disparity was the deliberate intent of Lang, whom they saw as interested more in the underlying themes of justice versus retribution than in character glorification. The Nazis are so over the top that this gap cannot be by accident. Alexander Granach as Gestapo Inspector Gruner and Gene Lockhart as turncoat Czaca positively revel in their nefarious machinations. I see this discrepancy more as revelatory of Lang's wish to present the Czech hostages as internal mirrors of their pacific exteriors. And on those rare occasions when the hostages show a more direct attitude about their lot, they are quite capable of evincing a believable straightforwardness.
When the film was released in 1943, audiences knew the Nazis were evil, but evil more in the Al Capone sense than in any genocidal one. The ending in which the duplicitous Czaca is framed for Heydrich's murder implies that as bad as the Germans were their word about releasing hostages could be trusted. History has proven otherwise. HANGMEN ALSO DIE is a life-affirming film that shows that even during the horrors of genocide, men and women of courage could yet find the dignity to retain their humanity even as their hammy tormentors could lose theirs.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 15
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