49th Parallel (1941)

Director:

Michael Powell

Writers:

Emeric Pressburger (story)
Rodney Ackland (scenario) ...

Release Date:

15 April 1942 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | War | Thriller

Plot:

A WW2 U-boat crew is stranded in northern Canada. To avoid internment, they must make their way to the border and get into the still-neutral USA.

Plot Keywords:

U Boat | Nazi | Fight | Hutterite | Winnipeg

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 2 nominations

Cast

Richard George	...	Kommandant Bernsdorff
Eric Portman	...	Lieutenant Hirth
Raymond Lovell	...	Lieutenant Kuhnecke
Niall MacGinnis	...	Vogel
Peter Moore	...	Kranz
John Chandos	...	Lohrmann
Basil Appleby	...	Jahner
Laurence Olivier	...	Johnnie - the Trapper
Finlay Currie	...	The Factor
Ley On	...	Nick - the Eskimo
Anton Walbrook	...	Peter
Glynis Johns	...	Anna
Charles Victor	...	Andreas
Frederick Piper	...	David
Leslie Howard	...	Philip Armstrong Scott

Also Known As:

Forty-Ninth Parallel (UK) (alternative spelling)
The 49th Parallel (International: English title) (informal title)
The Forty-Ninth Parallel (International: English title) (informal title)
The Invaders (USA)

Runtime:

123 min | USA:104 min | USA:122 min (TV version: M-G-M print)

Country:

UK

Language:

English | French | German

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

UK:U | Canada:PG (Ontario) | USA:TV-14 (TV rating) | Norway:12 (re-rating) (1962) | Norway:16 (1946) | Australia:PG | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Associated Sound News Studios, Montréal, Québec, Canada

Company:

Ortus Films

Trivia:

Tony Thomas in his book The Great Adventure Films states that this film " . . . was begun in April of 1940 and took eighteen months to complete. More than two-thirds of it was shot in Canada and required a great deal of travel. The Canadian government assisted the [film] company by giving facilities and loaning service-men and policeman whenever necessary, but the Royal Canadian Navy declined to allow the use of a submarine in the role of the U-37 since the few they had were actively engaged in real warfare. The [film] company solved their problem by commissioning a shipyard in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to build them a replica of a German U-Boat."

Goofs:

Continuity: Canadian Airways floatplane CF-BJE is hijacked by the Nazis in Hudson's Bay. The plane crashes in a Manitoba lake hours later, showing the reg CF-A something.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Prologue: I see a long, straight line athwart a continent. No chain of forts, or deep flowing river, or mountain range, but a line drawn by men upon a map, nearly a century ago, accepted with a handshake, and kept ever since. A boundary which divides two nations, yet marks their friendly meeting ground. The 49th parallel: the only undefended frontier in the world.

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Ultimate Film (2004) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Alouette

The best of all propaganda films.

Unless you believe George Orwell's claim that all art is propaganda; which, with all due respect to one of the twentieth century's finest minds, is poppycock. The propaganda film is a special kind of film, usually unbearable garbage. This one is an exception.

A German U-boat is sunk just off the coast of Canada and the surviving crew must make it through hostile enemy country to the neutral United States. After a short while their plight becomes known and the whole world is watching to see which nation, Canada or Germany, can manage to win the metaphorical battle.

The most interesting thing - considering the movie as propaganda - is that Powell's intended audience was the United States: he wanted to get that country involved in the war, or at least get the people of that country to support the war. Realise this and you realise how remarkably subtle the film is. Not once is Powell's goal explicitly stated or even alluded to; and even the underlying message (the USA *is* involved in the war, whether it wants to admit it or not) requires some thought to work out. Yet it's an integral part of the story. More explicit is the democracy vs. dictatorship theme, which is hammered home a number of different ways, not all of them obvious. (This theme is handled a bit too obviously now and then, I'll admit.)

Another interesting fact is that the hero of the story is either democracy, or Canada, or the Western Allies, or some such - no one person plays the role. The central characters are the Germans. In fact they're all quite likable (except for the doctrinaire Nazi, of course). Powell bends over backwards to inhibit anti-German sentiment. Despite all this we are not once on the Germans' side. We want them to be captured so long as they continue to serve an evil regime.

It's also a beautifully shot travelogue of Canada. And Ralph Vaughan Williams's score is lovely. He was seventy or so when he wrote it; he'd never written for the cinema before; he had his own ideas about what film music should be like.