This is a long movie for 1943 propaganda. However, it was also a mystery with many characters of interest. Would Dr Swoboda turn himself in? Would Professor Novotny be executed? What would Emil Czaka's fate be? The final message about him provides ironic justice. The locale seemed to be Prague, and there was (unless I missed it) no mention of the destruction of Lidice, so inextricably associated with Heydrich.JB

Director Fritz Lang at His most Unbridled, Self-Conscious, and Political. His quick Exit from Hitler's Germany and its Repressive Regime must Have Been of Considerable Effect on the Stylish Expressionist.Here His Trademark Shadows, brought to Life by Cinematographer James Wong Howe are Powerful Surreal Images that Linger in the Mind. But the most Surreal is the Overblown and quite Comical Cartoon Characters of Nazi Leader Nutcases.It seems that Lang just Couldn't Restrain Himself as He Painted these Buffoons so Wildly and Broadly that Surely Their Own Quirks of Knuckle Cracking and Outrageous Behavior were Added for Effect but Come Off as Ridiculous.However, if Viewed as a Highly Stylized and Grandiose Representation, this and the Films other Mesmerizing Elements can Have an Appeal. Rooting for the Noble Victims of the Nazi's Torturing Brutality is so in Your Face that One has to Wonder why Lang Chose to be Overly Melodramatic and Bizarre at Times. Wasn't the Behavior of these Nazis Evident enough for Audiences to Hiss without Making Them Gesture Wildly and Overreact to the Point of Distraction. Seems Not So in the Mind of the Filmmakers and the Sledgehammer to the Head is what Lang Thought was Necessary for Anyone at the Time Who Wasn't Paying Attention to File in Lock Step and Get On Board for the War Against Fascism. Anyone who was Not With the Sentiments in the Movie by 1943 was Unlikely to be Pushed Into Submission by this Type of Pictorial Preaching. The Film is a Fascinating Study of the Art of Propaganda and the Talent of a Group Effort is a Nod for Collectivism, just like the Solidarity of the Czech People.

Quite a few Nazi exiles were involved with Hangman Also Die, a project that even if hardly true is many cuts above the typical wartime propaganda flick. Director Fritz Lang, writer Berthold Brecht and many in the cast knew the Nazi mentality well and what it was like to live under them. They had the intelligence and foresight to leave while the getting out was good.We in America knew about the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, but scarce few details before the war was over. Lang and Brecht created an apocryphal tale of what should have happened. Hangman Also Die is one intricately plotted affair, a lot more than you would see it in a film of this type in wartime America.Hans Heinrich Von Twardowski is on ever so briefly as Heydrich in the beginning. His performance reminded me of Christopher Plummer as Commodus in The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire. Heydrich was far from the colorful character he's portrayed here in real life. This was a man who could go home to the wife and kids, home and hearth after a day's gassing at Auschwitz. Still Twardowski is memorable if not true to life.We never see the actual shooting. We do see Brian Donlevy who is a doctor as well as an assassin fleeing the scene of the attack and Anna Lee misdirecting the pursuing Nazis just by patriotic instinct. The Nazi response is swift and brutal. They start shooting chosen hostages one of them being Anna Lee's father university professor Walter Brennan.I have to say I was pleasantly surprised at Brennan here who gave a well thought out and restrained performance. In the North Star I thought he was out of place as a Russian peasant. I was expecting the same, but it was nice not to have expectations lived up to.The whole film is about a collective crisis of conscience for the Czech people. What do we do about this assassin, do we hide him, support him, or do we turn him in hopes that hostage shooting will cease? In the meantime the Gestapo presses on with the investigation.Gene Lockhart is also in the cast as a collaborator. His exposure as one is one of the best scenes in the film. Lockhart played many roles like this in his film career, but he was absolutely at his best in a part he honed to perfection.It should have happened this way in real life. The way the Gestapo closes the books on the Heydrich case is really well done. All I can say is that Brecht and Lang play on the characteristics of the Nazis, most of all their paranoia. Intricately plotted and executed beautifully by Fritz Lang and his cast.

Considering the complicated and fascinating back story of this production (how the Hollywood system represented by producer Arnold Pressburger and director Fritz Lang undermined the intentions of scriptwriter Bertolt Brecht in his first and only US film effort), it's amazing not only how effective the final product turned out to be, but how well it holds up after several decades. Yes, it's melodramatic; yes, there are Langian tricks; yes, the villains are extreme types; yes, there is sentimentality; yes, there is slick over-simplification and distortion of fact – but it still works powerfully as a tale of innocent people (the Czechs) fighting against a powerful aggressor (the Nazis in the early days of World War Two).If you're going to make a movie about Nazis, it certainly helps if the writers are German, and the story by Lang and Brecht fills that bill. So there is a living, breathing familiarity with the subjects, with significant sections delivered in German, effectively giving non-German- speaking audiences a sense of the alienation the Czechs felt from their occupiers. There are four main Nazi villains, each one of whom leaps off the screen. We start with Hans von Twardowski as Reinhard Heydrich who creates a memorably vicious, almost comically cruel autocrat, the kind of hateful person one wouldn't mind killing. And we don't have long to wait because his assassination is what sets the whole plot in motion. We are then presented with three finely etched Gestapo figures, each horrendous: Tonio Selwart, a well- groomed, perfectly tailored, ramrod straight martinet given to chain smoking and examining a large pimple on his cheek while conducting his bloody business; Reinhold Schunzel, flabby faced, gravel voiced and highly strung, who pops his knuckles and slurps tea while interrogating his victims; Alexander Granach, the unshaven, beer guzzling, skirt-chasing Inspector Gruber. And then we have Gene Lockhart, the epitome of small-minded corruption, as Emil Czaka, a businessman who betrays his own people. Walter Brennan is appropriately noble as Prof Novotny, lean and lithe and stoic as he is taken hostage after Heydrich's murder. Even the splendid Dwight Frye shows up briefly but strongly as a Czech hostage.Brecht and Lang are said to have disliked poor Anna Lee, who plays the young daughter of Prof. Novotny. Even if one is unaware of the nasty stresses unfairly imposed upon her during filming, one gets the sense that the weak moments in her performance result as much from the script and direction as from any lack of ability on her part. Brian Donlevy as the hero of sorts, was never a very interesting leading man but there is so much intrigue going on around him that his casting does no harm. Speaking of intrigue, a scheme that is hatched by the Czech underground to trap Czaka is so intricate and masterful (and implausible) that one cannot help but recall the diabolical maneuverings of Lang's 1922 creation, "Doktor Mabuse, der Spieler." "Hangmen," like much of the silent "Mabuse," also has an in-studio look, largely due to the fact that Lang had to work with a skimpy budget. The "street" scenes are obviously fake but what goes on in those "streets" is so compelling we are persuaded to ignore their obvious fakery. James Wong Howe's noirish cinematography is a plus under these constrictions.There is no way to know if a better film would have resulted had Brecht prevailed, so we're stuck with what we have: an action flick instead of an epic social drama. Despite flaws it's still one of the better World War Two era thrillers.