Shockingly effective programmer, the second Hollywood film from emigre director André De Toth, a (very) early Nazi War Crimes courtroom drama, made before the war had ended! The script, an imagination of such a trial, and a fairly believable one, simplified & naive in some respects, but also with some remarkably raw scenes of Nazi atrocities as Polish Jews are herded into cattle cars and gunned down during a revolt. Unprecedented violence against civilians for the 1944 screen, shown with a brutality unheard of at the time. Alexander Knox (being groomed for stardom that never happened when WILSON flopped later that year) is a wounded German WWI vet now unwelcome in the small Polish town where he’d once taught. He soon turns on one time friends when his engagement to fellow teacher Marsha Hunt is put on hold. She’s seen the change in him and his actions only grow worse, soon causing him to be run out of town. Twenty years later, a return in triumph, now a Nazi SS officer in charge of the occupation. The story told by various townspeople in flashback testimony during his trial. Fascinating stuff, if not as powerful as it wants to be, more a diagram for drama then a fully fledged work. But well handled, especially by some fine supporting players in bigger parts than usual, with De Toth and cinematographer Lee Garmes making much out of a very tight budget.
DOUBLE-BILL: Expand with stars, prestige and pretension from writer Abby Mann & director Stanley Kramer and you get JUDGEMENT AT NUREMBERG/’61. OR: See emigre director Fritz Lang tackle a non-fictional Nazi villain (Reinhard Heydrich) in HANGMEN ALSO DIE!/’43.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: A shame that André De Toth, a fine, tough director of mid-range pics, should be best remembered with some irony as the one-eyed helmer of 3-D pic HOUSE OF WAX/’53.
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