KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Ava-Grace Willis Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Phillipa Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

evanston_dad I was drawn to "Hangmen Also Die" for two reasons: 1. It's directed by Fritz Lang and 2. I thought it was a film noir. Well it's not remotely noirish, so anyone else who's intrigued by it for the same reason beware. It's an old school bit of pro-Allies WWII propaganda, and a pretty good one at that. The film is about a man hunt led by the Nazis to find the assassin of a high-ranking German official in an occupied Czech village. Brian Donlevy is the man they're looking for, and all sorts of Czechs suffer at the hands of the Nazis because the villagers collectively refuse to cooperate and turn Donlevy over to the authorities. The movie is a rallying cry for standing up to oppression and not giving into bullies, because once you do you've given them control over you.The plot is a bit convoluted, and there's a lot of it. The film clocks in at a meaty 130 minutes or so, long by the standards of the time and especially for a film like this. But I appreciated its grimness and its willingness to show some of the horrors of the conflict to its audience at the time the conflict was actually occurring. Gene Lockhart is despicable as a Nazi informer while Walter Brennan is marvelous (wasn't he always?) as a heroic academic. "Hangmen Also Die" received two Oscar nominations in 1943, one for its score by Hans Eisler and the other for its sound recording. Neither is especially remarkable, but those were the days when a whole slew of movies were nominated in those categories because of different Academy rules.Grade: A-

jacobs-greenwood This World War II propaganda thriller featuring a better than average plot and tolerable jingoism was co-produced and directed by Fritz Lang, who also co-wrote its story (with Bertolt Brecht) that was adapted by John Wexley. Set in occupied Czechoslovakia, the drama begins with the (unseen) assassination of the ruling Nazi official, German officer Reinhard Heydrich (Hans Heinrich von Twardowski), known to the Czech people as "the hangman" for his brutal tactics during Germany's occupation of their country. The Czechs were unified in their resistance against these occupying forces; their work was intentionally slow and they refused to snitch on each other for acts that hindered their oppressors. Hence, when the assassin (Brian Donlevy) is escaping, he's assisted by Nasha Novotny (Anna Lee), who directs the pursuing Germans in the opposite direction. However, the extreme actions which the unrelenting Nazis take to ferret out the assassin begin to make some Czechs question their devotion to the cause. Nasha is among the first because her father, Professor Stephen Novotny (Walter Brennan), is imprisoned along with hundreds of others marked for execution unless the assassin is revealed and captured.The Nazis are assisted by a traitor, Emil Czaka (Gene Lockhart), a brewer who lines his pockets while helping the Germans with their strategies and in capturing or killing members of the underground (like Byron Foulger's character). Gestapo Inspectors Gruber (Alexander Granach) and Ritter (Reinhold Schünzel) focus their attention and pressure on Nasha, who'd mistakenly brought herself and her family to their attention when she had a momentary lapse in patriotism. She deduces that the assassin is not an architect named Karel Vanek, as he'd first introduced himself, but is actually a surgeon, Dr. Franticek Svoboda. But after Nasha witnesses the brave resistance of others that she knows (e.g. a grocer played by Sarah Padden), she helps Svoboda to use her initial almost betrayal against Gruber and Ritter to ensnare Czaka. Her assistance in this effort is complicated by her fiancé (Dennis O'Keefe) Jan Horak's misunderstanding of the situation, but Jan eventually figures out Nasha's participation and joins the fight.This dramatic film's Score was nominated for an Academy Award, its Sound Recording was also Oscar nominated. Nana Bryant, Margaret Wycherly, Tonio Selwart, and Lionel Stander are among the other credited actors in the cast.

Michael_Elliott Hangmen Also Die! (1943) *** (out of 4) Based on the true story of the assassination of Nazi Reinard Heydrich, known to many as the "Hangman." Lang's story focuses on the aftermath of the events and the terror that the Nazi party much on the Czech people while trying to find the real assassin (Brian Donlevy). Lang's film was released the same year as the similar themed HITLER'S MADMAN but there's no question that this is the better of the two, although I still walked away somewhat disappointed. For the most part this film is a success but there's no denying that it has some major problems in its story as well as a few actors who are really miscast. The biggest problem in the cast is Walter Brennan who never seems very comfortable in his role as a Professor who finds himself being held by the Nazi party because they believe he knows the identity of the assassin. Donlevy makes for a solid lead, although at times one thinks he's way too stiff for the part. I think the sternness actually works in his favor but there are times where you'll wish he'd loosen up just a bit. I also wasn't too impressed with Anna Lee as I felt she underplayed several scenes here including a really bad one early on when she tries to tell her father that she thinks she knows who the assassin is. Gene Lockhart, on the other hands, steals the film in each scene that he's in. He certainly plays the type of villain that people will want to hiss out and he's perfect in each scene. This is especially true towards the end when he becomes the main suspect after years of helping the Nazi party. Horror fans will want to spot Dwight Frye in one brief scene. What makes the film worth sitting through is the actual story itself. The assassination and the following events are a fascinating case and for the most part Lang shows this quite well. His direction is top-notch from the very beginning and I thought he did a remarkable job as the tension starts to build on all the characters involved. The final twenty-minutes feature some very tense moments and they're also quite claustrophobic as the noose starts to get more and more tight. Another major plus is that the film never slows down as the longer running time actually goes by pretty fast without feeling overlong. I think some of the stuff could have been cut out including the entire bit with Lee and her relationship with her fiancé (Dennis O'Keefe) who thinks she's having an affair. I would have liked this to have been cut out with perhaps more attention spent to the actual assassination. With that said, even though one would wish for a masterpiece, we at least get an entertaining film that manages to keep us in suspense as everything begins to come out. This is certainly far from a great movie but there's enough here to make it worth viewing.

RanchoTuVu After Reinhard Heydrich is assassinated by the Czech resistance, the Gestapo goes all out to find his killer. Brian Donlevy gets top billing as the main star and Heydrich's killer, but the actors who portray the Gestapo officers, the Nazi matrons, and especially the one who portrays Heydrich, whom we see only in the opening scene of the movie, really give the film a sense of realism, not that Donlevy is wasted. The first scene with him in it is great, with James Wong Howe's camera right on his face as he's trying to find a room after the killing. This is as much a film about the Gestapo as it is about the resistance, thanks (perhaps) to Fritz Lang, who abandoned Germany after Hitler took power. In fact, Fritz Lang succeeds in bringing out the nuances of the resistance through Donlevy's part, the idea that one man (the killer) could (or should) surrender to the Gestapo in order to save hundreds of others from execution. And these are not faceless characters, but an actual family led by a professor played by Walter Brennan, with his daughter, the increasingly seductive Anna Lee, learning to see how this resistance works. The movie is spread a little thin at times, but develops a highly engrossing subplot involving Gene Lockhart as a wealthy Czech and Gestapo informer and his crumbling relationship with the Germans.