Let's not kid ourselves, "Hitler's Madman" is not only no masterpiece but pretty terrible in places yet director Douglas Sirk's movie about the assassination of Heydrich, made almost as the events themselves were unfolding, has great moments. There are scenes here as good as any in war movies, just as there are B-Movie moments as bad as any in B-Movies. Certainly the events portrayed are harrowing enough for this to feel like the ultimate feel-bad movie; perhaps what is most astonishing is that it was made at all while the war was still going on.It's let down, (badly), by some awful acting but redeemed by Sirk's brilliant handling of individual scenes and by a terrific performance from John Carradine as Heydrich, (his death scene is Oscar-worthy). It may not stick very closely to the events but it's still preferable to the more recent movie dealing with the same subject.

This is one of those little typical WW II allied propaganda-flicks, made during WW II. It's rather simplistic and cheap looking all but its all enough to still make this movie a good watch, of course especially when you're a fan of the genre. Of course the biggest problem with this movie now days is its propaganda undertone that can be basically seen back in every sequence of the movie. Cowards become heroes and bad men turn into good ones. It makes the movie a bit ridicules and not always credible enough to watch now days but it's a part of the time period the movie got made in. The story itself is quite interesting on its won right but you feel it deserved a better and more fair and closer to the truth treatment. Who knows, maybe filmmakers will pick up this story once again and give it the treatment it really deserves and making it the great movie that this movie in potential could had also been. None of the actors really known to impress within this movie but John Carradine still manages to push the movie to greater heights with his role of Nazi SS commander. It's a movie worth watching due to its main story but it's production values and acting make this movie also far from a great or impressive one. 6/10

Although it was overshadowed by Lang's "Hangmen also die" , "Hitler's madman" seems closer to Borzage's "the mortal storm" ,with its depiction of life in an occupied town.But the finale was probably borrowed from Abel Gance's "J'accuse" (1919 and 1937) and its "wake of the dead" sequences.Great sequences: the professor of philosophy resuming his lecture in front of the Nazis (there is a similar sequence in "the mortal storm");the female student,refusing to be treated as a beast ;the admirable scene where the mayor's wife,reading that her sons are dead, and cursing the "Fuhrer" (a famous lullaby the name of which I cannot remember ,makes a very moving score, as she remembers her boys' childhood).The hangman, in his bed and begging for morphine,as he too realizes that the Third Reich means nothing when you're dying.Probably Sirk's best forties film .In the fifties,he would come back to WW2 and the Nazi barbarity with a work I consider his masterpiece : "A time to love and a time to die" (1958),from the great German pacifist writer Erich Maria Remarque's novel.

This film story of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich (titled by the Nazis as Reichs Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, by the Czechs as "The Hangman", and also one of the architects of "The Final Solution")and of the subsequent annihilation of the village of Lidice by the Nazis, really does not do justice to the subject. Although released by MGM, it was actually produced by poverty row Producer Releasing Corporation (PRC). Some of the cast members are old familiars and rather good, but none give a feeling that these are Czechs being murdered by Hitler's minions. As war propaganda, it is a success, and it at least gives the spirit of the tragedy of Lidice, if not historically detailed facts. John Carradine is effective as Heydrich, especially in his deathbed scene.The facts about the assassination briefly are that two Czech partisans were parachuted into Czechoslovakia from an RAF plane. They managed to ambush Heydrich's open Mercedes, throw a bomb under it, and escape to a church. Heydrich died a few days later from complications arising from the penetration of his spleen by bomb fragments and debris from the car upholstery. Using torture, the Nazis discovered the whereabouts of the two partisans and the SS killed them at once. Lidice was picked more or less at random from among villages known to have anti-German leanings. On Hitler's orders, the men were shot and the women and children removed to camps, while the buildings of the site were levelled. When it became known in the allied world, this made excellent anti-Nazi propaganda, and more than one film was made of the subject. It may be that the massive retaliation backfired somewhat on the Nazis also by stiffening Czech resistance to the occupation.