WWII Archives - i luv cinema

August 9, 2011 By iluvcinema 7 Comments

Tuesday’s Overlooked Film: Night Train to Munich (1940)

Night Train to Munich deftly blends romance, comedy and suspense to create a great piece of entertainment. Much credit to this must go to director Carol Reed (of The Third Man notoriety) for his ability to combine all of these elements together.

The plot is somewhat generic for WWII espionage thrillers of the period with a few added twists and turns for good measure:

A Czech scientist has some information the Nazis want. As he and his daughter attempt to flee the impending occupation, the daughter (portrayed by Margaret Lockwood) is apprehended and sent to a concentration camp. She eventually “escapes” and heads to England to find her father, who is hidden somewhere in the country. While there, she comes in contact with British intelligence primarily in the form of Rex Harrison. All of this sets the narrative in motion in a race against time to prevent the Nazis from getting their hands on the Czech scientist’s secret.

As previously stated, the plot is somewhat generic for a wartime espionage thriller. Taken in its proper context, this makes sense. The year is 1940 and the film represents a propaganda-styled film designed to boost the morale of a nation deeply in the throws of a war against Germany; at this time England literally must feel like an island unto its own as it is about a year before the United States officially enters the conflict.

According to my research, Carol Reed looked at this film as a “sequel” of sorts to Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes, made two years earlier. While Night Train to Munich shares many similarities to its predecessor, chiefly (1) a main part of the action takes place on a train; (2) the cast includes Margaret Lockwood and the popular Charters and Caldicott (portrayed by Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, respectively); (3) it features a death-defying climatic sequence of events.

But that is where the similarities end. Notable and welcomed additions to this idea are the presence of Rex Harrison and Paul Henreid. In the case of the latter, Henreid puts on display his fine acting ability and succeeds in convincing the audience that he is a bona-fide “baddie.” This portrayal is in stark contrast to his later heroic turns in both Casablanca and Now, Voyager (both from 1942).

Night Train to Munich takes its audience on a fun and thrilling ride from the Czech Republic to England and Germany.

While you may occasionally catch it on cable (I recently watched it on Turner Classic Movies), it is also available on Criterion DVD at several online retail outlets.

June 28, 2011 By iluvcinema 6 Comments

Tuesday’s Overlooked Films: Lifeboat and Foreign Correspondent

To modern cinemagoers, when they think of Alfred Hitchcock, assuredly titles such as Rear Window, Vertigo, Psycho or The Birds come to mind.

Still for many Hitchcock devotees, the cut goes a little deeper and when back-cataloging his work, many are surprised to find that the majority of his films made when he first came to Hollywood were more derivative character-based dramas which may or may not contain elements of thrill and suspense. Also let us not forget the interspersed moments of light comedic relief often found in many of his productions.

This week’s installment of my overlooked films features a double-bill from this era (the 1940’s) in Mr. Hitchcock’s career, focusing on titles you may not have heard oft: Foreign Corresponent and Lifeboat. I chose to list these films jointly because they were produced around the same time and dealt with similar theme – World War II. World War II (and the subsequent Cold War) seemed to provide Hitchcock with ample material to drive his plots along now and in years to come.

Foreign Correspondent (1940)

It should be noted that this film was made prior to America’s entry into The War. The plot centers around a foreign correspondent working in Europe and being propelled into a global conspiracy. It is a taut, action-packed film that keeps you engaged until the very end. My favorite scenes: one involving Edmund Gwenn (I will say no more except to say, ‘NOT Saint Nick!’) and an amazing airplane crash sequence that was undoubtedly revolutionary for its time and still resonates with me.

Lifeboat (1944)

Four years later, Hitchcock made Lifeboat. This film strikes an even-keeled balance between ensemble piece, character drama and tense, nail-biting suspense. What is even more fascinating about this movie is it setting – it all takes place in and around a lifeboat floating in the Atlantic Ocean, in the aftermath of a German U-Boat attack. Standout performances include William Bendix, Walter Slezak and the one and only Tallulah Bankhead.

November 16, 2009 By idawson Leave a Comment

Revenge of the Zombies (1943)

revengeofthezombies1943 Revenge of the Zombies

This film is definitely a strange bird. It is about a mad scientist, Dr. Max Heinrich von Altermann (played by John Carradine) who is working on creating an army of zombie soldiers for the Germany during World War II. Don’t worry the feds are on the case as well as the brother of his recently “deceased” wife (Veda Ann Borg).

The ethnic stereotyping will shock some of today’s viewers; a reading of the definitive source on the portrayal of African Americans in cinema: Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies & Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films, and you will be able to easily identify the caricatures. For audiences of the day, they knew what they were in for by the presence of one Mantan Moreland, a popular actor in his day as the go-to guy of “bug-eyed” slapstick comic relief. This slapstick, when combined with the theme of zombies and Nazis does provide for a bit of “campiness” that devotees of B-films might appreciate.

Mantan’s performance as well as the presence of John Carradine do elevate this film for a production of Hollywood’s Poverty Row (by Monogram Pictures), but that still does not make it a cinematic masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination. However, that is part of the charm and appeal of a movie like this. During this time, it was the minor studios’ job to deliver low-budget (and often short) forms of cinematic amusement – good taste be damned!