Filmed in 1943, when the outcome of the
Second World War was still very much in doubt, Hangmen Also Die! is based loosely upon the assassination of a
high-ranking German officer called Reinhard Heyrich, an event that took place
only months before the movie was made. It concentrates on the Gestapo’s hunt
for the assassin, Dr. Franticek Svoboda (Brian Donlevy), a physician working
for the Czech resistance. Svoboda is on the run, and with the Nazis closing in
fast he turns to Mascha Novtony (Anna Lee) for help, hiding out with her family
until the evening’s curfew is over. But the Nazis will stop at nothing to find Heyrich’s
killer, rounding up hundreds of Czech citizens including Mascha’s own father
(Walter Brennan), and threatening to execute them if the assassin isn’t handed
over. Meanwhile, the resistance have discovered that one of their members, the
brewer Emil Czaka (Gene Lockhart), is covertly working with the Gestapo. With
Svoboda racked by guilt as the Czech hostages begin to die, and Masha desperate
to save her father, even if that means betraying Svoboda to the Gestapo, the
resistance set about framing Czaka for the assassination.
Hangmen
Also Die! is an impressive movie, made especially
powerful because it was directed, produced and co-written by Fritz Lang, a
filmmaker who fled Nazi Germany mere hours after Hitler’s propaganda minister
Joseph Goebbels offered him the job of heading up German film studio UFA. He
eventually arrived in Hollywood in 1936 and would work there for the next
twenty-one years, and although none of his American films would ever be as
critically acclaimed as his earlier German movies, certain of his projects –
especially Hangmen Also Die! and the 1945 noir ‘Scarlet Street’ – are cinematic
gems that owe much to Lang’s foundations as an expressionist filmmaker. For
example, there are many moments during Hangmen Also Die! which recall the
greatness of ‘M’ (Lang’s use of shadow and montage – especially during a
beautifully edited group interrogation sequence – and the brilliantly paranoid conspiracy
that frames Czaka) and there is a dark humour to Alexander Granach’s (Granach
played Knock – aka Renfield – in Murnau’s ‘Nosferatu’) and Reinhold Schunzel’s
Gestapo Inspectors that is very reminiscent of Lang’s 1928 thriller ‘Spione’. There
is also a theatricality to Hangmen Also Die! that works exceptionally well in
the context of the story, and is probably largely due to Lang’s co-writer Bert
(Bertolt) Brecht, another German exile whose work has massively influenced
world culture.
As far as presentation goes, this is an
almost flawless print. The picture and sound are both perfect. Special features
are few but this is definitely a case of quality rather than quantity – there’s
an engrossing audio commentary from film historian Richard Pena and an
intriguing interview with biographer Robert Gerwarth about the real-life
Reinhard Heyrich.
A fantastic package, very highly
recommended.
HANGMEN ALSO DIE! / CERT: PG / DIRECTOR: FRITZ LANG / SCREENPLAY: JOHN WEXLEY / STARRING: HAND HEINRICH VON TWARDOWSKI, BRIAN DONLEVY, WALTER BRENNAN, ARNO FREY, ANNA LEE / RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 29TH
