Hangmen Also Die! (1943) User Reviews

A tribute to the oppressed who dared to fight Nazi brutality...

[Nazi_Fighter_David · 7/10 · 24 April 2004]

'Hangmen Also Die' takes as its story, the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, a German Nazi official, head of the security police, chief deputy to the head of the Schutzstaffel, Heinrich Himmler, who organized mass exterminations of European Jews during the opening years of World War II... and also the subsequent retaliatory devastation of Lidice, a Czech mining village…

With his usual skill, Lang weaves a tale of gripping suspense: the Gestapo's efforts to find the assassin; the workings of the Czech resistance fighters; and the traitor who is finally hoisted on his own petard…

The film is an indictment of Nazi brutality and a tribute to the oppressed who dared to fight it

Good anti-nazi propaganda, but not good history.

[FISHCAKE · 7/10 · 17 March 2000]

One suspects this film registered better with viewers in 1943 than it does today. Despite being suggested by the actual assassination of Reichs Protector of Bohemia and Moravia Reinhard Heydrich, better known to the Czechs as "The Hangman" because of his excessive brutality in dealing with residents of the conquered regions, it is almost total fiction. Even so it is not bad as a rather involved drama and was very likely good anti-nazi propaganda.

Perhaps it is well to start with what actually did happen to Heydrich on May 29, 1942. Two young Czechs, Jan Kubis and Josef Ganchik, parachuted in from an RAF plane and managed to ambush "the Hangman" riding in his open Mercedes. Armed with both machine pistols and a bomb, the apparently did little harm by shooting, but did explode the bomb under the car. Heydrich's spleen was penetrated by bomb fragments and debris causing death several days later, possibly more by infection than anything else. The two Czechs evaded capture briefly, but witnesses under torture revealed their hiding place in a church and the SS killed them. In a massive retaliation, Hitler picked the village of Lidice, more or less at random, from among places known to harbor anti-German sentiment, and ordered its total annihilation. The people of Lidice had nothing whatever to do with the assassination, of course.

In HANGMEN ALSO DIE we have the story of a lone assassin, using an English made pistol, whose getaway taxi was forced to move by German soldiers, causing him to take refuge during the curfew at the home of a Czech professor. The professor's daughter, Mascha, had impulsively directed the German pursuit away from him. The German police suspect the girl, but release her in the hope she will lead them to the wanted man. They also round up many Czechs, including the girl's father, and begin shooting them as hostages. The girl at first intends to give information, hoping to save her father, but in the end is persuaded otherwise by the Czech resistance. A plan is concocted to bamboozle the SS and save the assassin and the girl, but what it is you will have to see for yourself. Be assured it is incredible.

As you see, this story has little to do with the historic assassination and its aftermath, beyond illustrating the SS brutality, but it does make a mildly entertaining wartime adventure with good propaganda value, largely because of the rather low key, intensely personal nature of the plot elements. Some of the characters are very real and believable, e.g. the Gestapo Inspector Gruber, the girl Mascha, and her father, all ably portrayed by Alexander Granach, Anna Lee, and Walter Brennan respectively. On the other hand, some characters are more like cardboard cut-outs and get wooden performances to suit. Brian Donlevy as Dr.Svoboda, the assassin, fits this category alas, as do a number of others. What realism there is seems likely to have been the contribution of Bertolt Brecht rather than John Wexley, who got the credit for the screenplay. One likes to think that Fritz Lang did the best he could with a mixed bag of acting talent, but this can hardly be said to be his best effort.

Just why Hollywood producers seem to prefer fiction to the facts when dealing with historical material is a major mystery to me. In 1943 the general facts of the assassination were known, if not all the details, and could have made just as dramatic a story as this fictional one. It is worth a watch, though, especially if you like Anna Lee.

Gripping in its intensity

[Varlaam · 8/10 · 31 December 1999]

In 1942, the Czech underground assassinates Reinhard Heydrich, the governor of Bohemia-Moravia. Heydrich's assassin tries to escape capture.

This is based on a true story of course -- it's a well-known episode of World War II. Czech commandos were brought in from Britain on a mission with a slim chance of survival for the selfless agents. They unfortunately met a sad end after being betrayed by a fellow Czech. The history is described very well in books such as Callum MacDonald's "The Killing of SS Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich".

In 1943, when this film was made, were the full details of the actual events widely available in the USA? I'm not sure, but it seems unlikely.

The story as presented here is the tale of what happens one day when a girl goes out to buy vegetables for supper, and when a taxi driver lets his finicky engine idle. Perhaps this plot was fabricated for want of any other alternative, but its sheer ordinariness adds to its immediacy.

The reptilian Heydrich was one of the architects of Hitler's Final Solution. It's no coincidence that the plan to assassinate him was code-named "Anthropoid".

Hans Heinrich von Twardowski plays him briefly at the beginning of the drama. He's cold-blooded, vicious, rabid ... and a little effeminate. That aspect seems questionable. In 1943, there were at least as many reasons for knowing what his character represented as there were occupied countries in Europe. This particular embellishment seems to add little or nothing to the suspense.

(Twardowski himself was a German exile in Hollywood. If you can read German and have a look at the titles of the films he made in 1928 and 1929, you can probably hazard a guess as to why he was forced to leave Hitler's Germany.)

Brian Donlevy plays the assassin. It's not by chance that this character is named Dr. Svoboda. Svoboda is a common name, but it also happens to be the Czech word for "freedom".

I always find Donlevy effective, particularly so in "The Great McGinty" (1940) for Preston Sturges, but he does have a certain B actor limitation on access to his character's inner thoughts. He doesn't quite have the hunted quality of someone facing certain capture and torture. A perspiring lip might have helped.

Better is Alexander Granach as the Gestapo man Gruber, a Bob Hoskins sort of person, only sinister. He's ruthless, cunning, perfect in the part.

Walter Brennan appears as a Czech professor arrested and held as a hostage. Prof. Walter Brennan, that's right! He's very good. Considering the typecasting he must have been fighting against, he's excellent in fact.

My moderate criticism of some of the performances notwithstanding, the suspense in the story was of the nail-biting kind, I felt. I wouldn't have wanted to watch this in 1943 -- it's just too bleak, too disturbing. When hostages are being held by the Gestapo, it's a lose-lose situation all around. All possible outcomes are disastrous.

I guess the filmmakers felt -- knew -- that this would be more than a contemporary audience could really handle in the middle of wartime. Hence the film has an uplifting, artificial, fantasy ending which arrives like a deus ex machina.

That's certainly a drawback for viewers now, but I can't fault anyone. The context of the times couldn't have allowed any other solution.

Fritz Lang directed this return to Mitteleuropa, the scene of his youth and early classic films. He runs the show like a police procedural, making it all too real. He allows himself a couple of his great shots which I will allow you to discover for yourself.

In real life, the actual Czech assassins -- Josef Gabcik and Jan Kubis, plus their look-out man, Josef Valcik -- were all killed in battle at their hiding place in the Karel Boromejsky Church in Prague on June 18, 1942.

Heydrich's state funeral had been held earlier in Berlin on June 9. The Nazis had Siegfried's Funeral March from Wagner's "Götterdämmerung" played for the occasion, probably with extra added bombast.

That's the sort of heroic farewell that the martyred Czechs should have received.

A Devastating Blow Against the Nazi War Machine

[mbuchwal · 10/10 · 28 January 2006]

Made at the height of WWII not long after the events upon which it is based took place, "Hangmen Also Die" is a testament to the patriotic spirit of the Czechoslovakian people under the most dire conditions imaginable. After the Nazis have invaded and conquered the country, a brave resistance fighter assassinates the brutal leader of the German occupation forces, SS leader Reinhard Heydrich, who, like Klaus Barbie, was a ruthless butcher of the innocent. Heydrich subjugated the Czech people by murdering, torturing and enslaving hordes of non-combatant civilians.

Just before the Nazi tyrant is shot, he threatens to end a factory slowdown by the murder of hundreds of Czech workers. It is this threat that precipitates the assassination. The desperate killer of Heydrich, member of an underground Czech resistance group, narrowly escapes capture with the assistance of civilians who suffer the consequences immediately afterwards when many are taken hostage by the Nazis, with the threat of imminent death hanging over their heads if the assassin is not turned over to the Gestapo.

At the center of the tense drama is Nasha Novotny, flawlessly played by Anna Lee, as the daughter of a distinguished university professor and patriot, portrayed by character actor Walter Brennan. Nasha is instrumental in aiding Brian Donlevy (as Dr. Svoboda, the assassin with ice water in his veins) to escape his bloodthirsty Gestapo pursuers. But when Nasha's own father is picked up by the Gestapo, she is forced to question her loyalty to the resistance, begins to regard the man she has saved as a deadly threat to her family and nearly turns traitor to save her father's life. Expatriate German director Fritz Lang and his scenarists show great sympathy in portraying this all too human failing. In a few simple touches they go far beyond stereotype in showing how the recalcitrant patriot overcomes her strong personal misgivings to rejoin the heroic struggle against the Nazis.

"Hangmen" is not a movie for the mechanically minded. Its craft is the art of understatement. Many of the events dramatically most important to the story -- such as the assassination -- are not depicted or happen off-screen. Whole sections of the plot line are there only by inference. This is particularly true at the end of the film, when the entire conspiracy to frame up an enemy collaborator is only hinted at before it is sprung as a surprise upon the audience, as on the unwitting villain. How did the underground resistance fighters arrange to fabricate so deadly a case against a traitor? We can only guess, but may hardly object to the ironic way in which the informant meets his end.

Fritz Lang has a well known reputation as a leader of the noir school of film maker. Yet, in spite of its horrifying premise, the movie is neither bleak nor pessimistic but a straightforward affirmation of the struggle against tyranny. Unlike many of his less gifted followers, Lang is no mere stylist but is just as much concerned with the historic and moral significance of his story as the artful way in which he presents it. To those who might object that the Nazis are portrayed as stereotyped bad men, the answer is that the Nazis were precisely what the film shows them to be: ugly brutish travesties of human beings. And who would know that better than Fritz Lang and his excellent scenarist Bertolt Brecht? Both of them had lived in Germany under the Nazis and escaped to the United States to strike a devastating propaganda blow against the enemy.

Excellent Film by Fritz Lang

[funguymike32 · 26 October 2004]

Superb addition to Fritz Langs wonderful catalogue of films.

We see here his trademark 'almost documentary' style as well as propaganda (See The Last Testament of Dr Mabuse for another take on the Nazi regime). His trademark shadows (See 'M').

Early in the film we see Heydrich, an evil dictator who used his mandate from Hitler in the fullest possible way. Here he is played by Hans Heinrich von Twardowski who really is scary in portrayal. Lang shows this brilliantly in the way that the Czech people fear him, and also that he is feared by his own men. The master stroke here is the way Heydrich speaks only in German with no subtitles, given an English translation by someone else in the room. People fear him as he is and even though they cannot understand him, they fear what he has said.

The film centres around the reprisals after Heydrich's assassination. The assassin is still living/hiding in Prague. A few know his identity. But they know that if they inform the Gestapo they will be killed and they also know if they don't they may die anyway.

The tight script builds the tension to the highest level to a brilliant climax.

The cast are brilliant, especially the ever reliable Walter Brennan. An actor of the highest caliber. Abley backed up by Anna Lee, Brian Donlevy & Dennis O'Keefe.

This film is made all the more brilliant by the fact that it's idea was conceived only a short time after Heydrich's real-life assassination, not necessarily from a propaganda point of view, but with Lang you know you will get a film that will bench mark the film industry for years to come and people will sit up and take notice.

Why great directors make great films

[eh46637-1 · 9/10 · 5 February 2007]

The actors in this film made any number of cheesy B movies during the war, but with Berthold Brecht and Fritz Lang behind them they made a movie touching on greatness. Check out the characterizations of Heydrich, the policeman Gruber, and the other Gestapo agents. Walter Brennan as the patriotic father was an odd choice, but maybe I'm being blinded by his later Western sidekick roles. The sets are outstanding. Although obviously on a Hollywood back lot they made a very believable Prague, using in part pre-war travelogue footage of the city. Indoor scenes are excellent. The actors look like they live in a real place, not a cuckooland paradise that most hack directors would give you.

Fabulous for the time--right smack in the middle of it all

[secondtake · 7/10 · 5 December 2010]

Hangmen Also Die! (1943)

The best part of this movie is knowing it was made right in the middle of the war, not in some recreation of the events. It's a little hyperbolic, for sure, but really well acted (both the Nazis and the Czechs), and it ends up being a battle of wits and tricks between the two sides.

Fritz Lang was a refuge from Nazi Europe and made this in Hollywood, with an expected sensibility for the cruelties and barbarism of the occupying nasties. And they probably were this nasty--worse, in truth, though less comically so, as the movie sometimes pushes it a bit. Still, really enjoyable, in all. Yet, somehow, it was long. The twists from one scene to another started to sound familiar, and the tension was sustained rather than invigorated, if that makes any sense.

Brian Donlevy is the leading good guy here, and he's always a little less than compelling, though he is not in most of the scenes so I suppose that's fine. The double-crosser was played by Gene Lockhart, whose presence grows as the movie gets on, and by the end he's really pretty amazing (far beyond the caricature of, say, the judge he played in "Miracle on 34th Street"). Walter Brennan makes an appearance, recognizable mostly by his voice. Two of the Nazi higher-ups were terrific, both the Pilsner guzzling brute and the slightly comical but scary gestapo head.

Lang is no fool, and he makes this movie not only a pleasure, but an important tool to remind viewers to be involved, to realize that you can fight oppression, even Nazi oppression, with enough wits and sacrifice.

Wonderfully directed

[HotToastyRag · 9/10 · 4 June 2021]

In case you can't tell from the title, Hangmen Also Die! Is a very heavy film. It's one of those underground resistance movies made during the height of WWII, and it's incredibly powerful even now after we know we've won the war. There were many of this sub-genre made during the time period before an Allied victory was assumed, and they all captured a very scary feeling. Stick together, trust no one, and be prepared to give your life so your children won't have to live in a German-speaking world.

This movie takes place in Czechoslovakia, during the Nazi occupation with strict curfews and rules against congregation. However, there's a man out when he shouldn't be, running around where he shouldn't be. He kills a Nazi soldier, and just when he's about to be captured, a young woman who watched the incident does a small act of kindness. She lies to the pursuing guards and points them in the wrong direction, buying the man some time. Little does she know she's opened her entire family to scrutiny and changed everyone's lives forever.

Brian Donlevy is the man on the run, and Anna Lee is the woman who saves him. He believes he can trust her, so he seeks refuge for the night in her home as an alibi. Her father, Walter Brennan, and her mother Nana Bryant, are against the idea, knowing it will get them into trouble - but they're already in too deep to turn back. So, Brian stays the night and the family tries to come up with a plausible story that will keep everyone out of trouble. Sure enough, the Gestapo find out and question them, headed by the ruthless interrogator Alexander Granach.

Fritz Lang's fantastic direction keeps a fast pace that never lets you catch your breath. Everyone in the cast is uncharacteristically intense, giving some of their best performances - and I can't help but give credit to Lang as well. When the entire cast is at the top of their game, the director has usually given his all, too. Brian Donlevy is usually a villain, Walter Brennan is usually a crotchety hick, Gene Lockhart is usually genial, and Alexander Granach made very few talkies after his successful silent career. Partly because of these against-type performances, and partly because of the suspenseful script, the movie constantly surprises. This is not easy to watch, but it's worth it if you can.

Top notch WWII drama

[tyguy-2 · 7/10 · 1 November 2002]

This is loosely based on the true story of a member of the Czech underground assasinating the nazi regional governer, a ruthless fellow they call 'the Hangman'. The story revolves around the assasin and the family that unknowingly hid him from the gestapo. When questioned by the gestapo, the family says the guy was there to see their daughter, who happens to be engaged to another fine gentleman. So this little situation complicates the story, as the gestapo detective,a very ruthless chap, tries to catch them in the lie. From there the story moves along in chilling fashion when 400 townfolks are rounded up to be executed in groups of 10 each day until the assasin is turned in. This causes people to question their inner strength and makes them wonder if it is worth it to sacrifice themselves to keep him hidden. The story gets resolves in a very clever way which I will not reveal. The movie has that film noir/Hitchkockian feel to it with the protagonist being chased down and making clever escapes by the skin of his teeth. Although the movie drags a bit here and there, it ends up being a worthwhile suspenseful drama and also makes you think a bit about what would you do if you were put in that situation.

No wonder McCarthy hated this film!

[LCShackley · 9/10 · 18 July 2007]

Supposedly, this film was suppressed in the USA because it came out in favor of the Communists. I just watched it today, and I can only remember one faint mention of the Russians (and don't forget, they were our allies at the time!). What must have really irked McCarthy was this film's scathing portrayal of those who snitch on their friends and co-workers, and those who coerce them into doing so.

Gene Lockhart, whom I always think of as likable Bob Cratchit from the Reginald Owen "Christmas Carol," deserves high honors for his intense portrayal of a Czech traitor who works behind his neighbors' backs to betray them to the Nazi occupiers. Anna Lee is strong in her central role as the woman caught up in a dangerous plot. Many of the supporting characters also shine, such as Alexander Granach as the lusty Nazi enforcer Gruber. I couldn't quite warm up to Brian Donlevy in the central role. (He looks too much like an American businessman, like Raymond Bailey.) And Walter Brennan, although he looks great, seems out of place because of his heavy New England accent.

What makes this movie a standout is the script and direction. There's not a wasted moment in this long film, and plenty of interesting set pieces (the theater, the cab ride/street confrontation, etc.). Brecht and Lang weave a web that grows larger but not looser as the film progresses.

Vee Heff Vays Uff Making You Talk.

[rmax304823 · 7/10 · 9 June 2015]

If you're going to enjoy this, you'd better clear your mind of any knowledge you might hold of the assassination of Heydrich in occupied Czechoslovakia. Treat this as a fictional tale about a fictional hunt for a fictional assassin in Prague.

The historical facts are too depressing anyway. Heydrich was murdered by two guys. The Nazis tortured Czechs until one of them squealed. Then they tracked the assassins to a church and the two killers committed suicide. The Nazis then destroyed a village that had nothing to do with political events. See "Operation: Daybreak."

Here, we have Brian Donlevy as a doctor in Prague who shoots Heydrich. He then has to seek immediate shelter in the house of strangers, in this case, the home of Professor Walter Brennan and his family, including daughter Anna Lee.

The Gestapo are understandably upset and they organize a manhunt for the killer, which centers around Donlevy and around the family that sheltered him. The Nazis round up and execute Czechs at random but nobody talks. And, in the end, the underground frames a Nazi agent for the crime.

The Nazis aren't shown as stupid brutes. Alexander Granach, the Gestapo Inspector, is positively clever in a swinish, almost comic way. Fritz Lang has him with a haircut that the punk rockers of the 80s would have envied. His military mustache curls up at the ends, as in a morale-boosting poster left over from World War I and his plump neck hangs over his collar. His gestures are operatic, his perceptions acute, his consumption of beer heroic.

Not far behind, if in fact he's behind at all, is Reinhold Schünzel as the uniformed Gestapo officer. He smiles pleasantly, leaning back and tripling his chin, while describing the torture that a suspect is about to undergo, but in an avuncular way, as if about to buy a child an ice cream cone. While the victim stands shivering, Schünzel grins, swivels in his office chair, and cracks his knuckles one by one.

Less of an actor but more of a straight figure is Tonio Selwart as the Chief of the Gestapo. Less of a caricature, more of a character. He doesn't smile or squint. He speaks quietly and with sweet reason. And he wears those great uniforms with riding breeches and boots, and he wears a monocle, and Fritz Lang shows us Selwart peering into a mirror and squeezing a zit on his cheek.

The good guys are much less interesting. Brian Donlevy is referred to as a young man but he's a little old for that. I mean, the guy was in Mexico with General Pershing in pursuit of Panch Villa, wasn't he? And anyway, he's practically ligneous. If his expression ever changed, I missed it, and he walks with his chest thrown out like a pigeon's. Dennis O'Keefe, in a minor part, is harmless as always. Walter Brennan, toothless old Walter Brennan, comic sidekick, does rather well by the role of a professor of history, and Anna Lee as his daughter is cute as hell. Slender, wide-eyed, shivering with fright. I love her. The problem is that all the good guys stand around spraying patriotic clichés just as a lawn sprinkler sprays water.

No, it's not Fritz Lang's best picture but neither is it is worst. The script credit goes to Berthold Brecht but I understand he didn't contribute much. Still, I'm glad he was in Hollywood instead of (gulp) elsewhere. His songs for the comedy "Where Do We Go From Here?" are memorable. Lang was a popular director in Germany and was asked by Goebbels to head the movie propaganda program of the Third Reich. As he describes it, he replied, "I'm tickled pink," and was on the next airplane out of Berlin. He brings some of his expressionism and originality with him. The dark, deep, dramatic shadows of films like "Ministry of Fear" are already adumbrated, so to speak.

And he does something that should earn him a medal. Lang was fond of using mirrors in his films for some reason. (Check out "Woman in the Window.") Here, he has Granach run to a mirror to inspect some smeared lipstick on his cheeks. And -- guess what -- Granach looks AT HIS OWN REFLECTION and not at the camera lens. When the actor looks at the audience instead of himself, it's a jarring estrangement for the viewer, who is hit over the head with the realization that this is not just a movie, but a clumsily directed one, an insulting one, at that.

You know, considering that so many of the cast were born in Germany, you have to wonder just how often directions were given in English. Lang was quite an authoritarian. I can see him now, strutting about with his boots, riding breeches, and monocle, bellowing orders through a bullhorn.

Very good WWII war and crime movie

[Enchorde · 8/10 · 23 March 2004]

The Nazi "protector" of Czechoslovakia is murdered and Gestapo is let loose to hunt down the assassin. Will the underground resistance survive? Will the assassin be betrayed by the Czech people as Gestapo murders innocent people to bring the assassin forward?

This is a very good movie, the plot brings lets the suspense gradually grow throughout the movie. This means that the beginning did seem a little slow, but given time, the patience will be rewarded. The ending is very good and you're not really sure exactly what will happen. The actors are good and the cinematic work very good.

There is a portion of propaganda in there as well, however, the evident propaganda is cut to a few scenes and do not interfere with the plot or the movie in itself. Instead, it is rather well integrated in the movie, and actually only bring the movie to another level.

Clearly set in the WWII, but this movie will never get old.

8/10

HANGMEN ALSO DIE! (Fritz Lang, 1943) ***

[Bunuel1976 · 7/10 · 2 January 2007]

One of a handful of propaganda films made by Hollywood during WWII to show how various occupied European countries dealt with the situation; similar films included THE MOON IS DOWN (1941), EDGE OF DARKNESS (1943), THE NORTH STAR (1943) and THIS LAND IS MINE (1943). This one, however, differs from these in that it tackles a real-life event i.e. the assassination of Heydrich - dubbed "The Hangman" (his assassination was the subject of two more films, the contemporaneous HITLER'S MADMAN [1943] and OPERATION DAYBREAK [1975]) - and is further elevated by the contribution of two important figures of pre-war German art, director Lang and writer Bertolt Brecht.

It also features a great cast (mostly delivering excellent performances, but is saddled with a miscast and rather stiff Brian Donlevy in the lead): Walter Brennan and Gene Lockhart are featured in overly familiar roles but their contribution is, as ever, reliable and entirely welcome; best of all, perhaps, are Anna Lee and Alexander Granach; beloved character actor Dwight Frye (most familiar to horror-film buffs) appears here in one of his last roles but, as was generally the case, is regrettably given only a couple of lines!

Long and heavy-going, with the propagandist element coming off as fairly corny now, but the film is held firmly together by Lang's fine direction and James Wong Howe's superb noir-ish lighting (the Region 1 DVD by Kino was eventually re-issued as part of a 5-Disc Noir set). It also involves a couple of scuffles which are quite tense and energetic (Granach's death scene is especially striking), while the last third resorts to the organized frame-up by the Czechs of a traitor in their midst (collaborationist Lockhart) - which, in itself, is no less frightening an act than the heinous persecution of the Nazi regime!

I'm confused, however, about the film's running-time: the print I watched ran for 129 minutes in PAL mode (which would bring it to about 134 minutes when converted to NTSC); even so, it contains the ending missing from the DVDs released in Regions 1 and 2 which, being the same version i.e. cut and having the same length (134 minutes), would indicate that the Kino edition is a PAL conversion - which means a full running-time of 139 minutes (a minute short of the 'official' length, as per Lotte Eisner's book on Lang)! To make matters worse, both the Leslie Halliwell and Leonard Maltin film guides I own cite HANGMEN ALSO DIE! as being 131 minutes long!!

OK film, very bad history

[aemmering · 4/10 · 7 February 2007]

Hangmen Also Die is an OK sort of film, fatally marred by the fact that it is pure propaganda, obviously slanted towards a wartime audience. The plot, involving an elaborate scheme to incriminate a Czech, who is both a businessman and Nazi informer is a complete fiction! One is left with the idea that the real assassin simply got away with it! The real facts were generally available at this time, and I'm amazed that Lang and the others involved here got away with this! The real story is a bit less upbeat: Heydrich was killed by not one, but two Czechs, who fired at him and finally killed him by lobbing a bomb at his vehicle. The two hid out in a church and were hunted down and killed just shortly thereafter. Sadly, not all the Czechs were as loyal to the resistance as those shown in this film. Someone informed on the killers, which led to their speedy demise. This is the incident which triggered the famous reprisal, carried out by the Nazis: for revenge for the murder of Heydrich they destroyed an entire Czech town, Lidice, the locale chosen at random. Since this is very famous part of wartime history, I am sad that so many viewers don't know what the real story was. The theme of Nazi reprisal is worked in very well, but the film steers clear of the much more shocking and ugly truth. A pity-for the real story would have been a much clearer picture of the true brutality of the Nazis. I guess 1940s audiences weren't considered mature enough to handle the truth! Again this gross distortion of the facts here is a fatal flaw. Sad, since I think the director, with more accurate material could have produced a great film...tragedies such as these were more his forte.

Swift and Brutal

[bkoganbing · 9/10 · 9 December 2014]

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.

An Interesting war related film

[jamesfalace · 8/10 · 22 October 2020]

In Prague in 1942 after an assassin on Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich. After the assassin (Svoboda) escapes, he runs and finds shelter in the house of Stephen Novotny. He stays the night and during the morning Stephen Novotyn and 400 other Czechs are captured and are told that if the assassin doesn't turn himself in, they will all be executed. I personally love movies that have ultimatums like this because it adds a lot of pressure onto the characters and it makes you wonder what is going to happen next. It's almost like a mini cliff hanger because once the 400 Czechs are threatened, you have no idea if they will end up dying or if the assassin is the next to die. Will they hold up on their promise if the assassin turns himself in or will they still kill all 400 them with no mercy. A gestapo detective named Alois Gruber has been given the job to track down the assassin no matter what but the people of Prague come Together and make sure something like this won't happen. They stop him and his attempts to find Svoboda. They then frame the Czaka as the assassin then the film ends with "This is not the end" which is a very very interesting way to end the movie. It's a cliffhanger and makes you wonder what really happen from now and onward. This movie was a very interesting one because it kept you guessing through the duration of the movie. I would say that I was entertained and would love to sit down and watch it again to see if I missed anything after the first watch.

Flawed but Entertaining War Propaganda

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 15 November 2010]

On 27 May 1942, in Prague, the Deputy Reich-Protector of Bohemia and Moravia "Hangman" Reinhard Heydrich is shot by the resistance member Dr. Franticek Svoboda (Brian Donlevy). After the attempt on Heydrich's life, Nasha Novotny (Anna Lee) gives the wrong runaway direction of Svoboda to the Gestapo agents. When Svoboda sees that he is trapped, he goes to Nasha's apartment seeking shelter and he introduces himself as the architect Karel Vanek. He is welcomed by the patriarch and former revolutionary Professor Stephen Novotny (Walter Brennan) and he spends the night with the family. On the next morning, the Gestapo captures hostages including Professor Novotny to force the population to denounce the assassin. Nasha goes to the St. Pancracio Hospital to seek out the resident surgeon Dr. Franticek Svoboda and ask him to surrender to the German authorities to protect the hostages. But sooner she learns that the occupation police has no intentions to let the prisoner go and she helps the resistance in the plan to frame the traitor Emil Czaka (Gene Lockhart).

"Hangmen Also Die!" is a flawed but entertaining war propaganda film based on a true event, the murder of "Hangman" Reinhard Heydrich. The fictional plot of fight for freedom is engaging and it is interesting since it was filmed in 1943, before the end of the war. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Os Carrascos Também Morrem" ("The Hangmen Also Die")

The Last People You Expect Are Brave

[boblipton · 8/10 · 10 May 2023]

Heydrich was actually killed by a team of expatriates sent by the British. Fritz Lang's long (134 minutes) seems to me to be more relatable to his masterpiece M, in which the police and the underworld search separately for the insane murderer, leading into a bizarre sequence in which the criminals hold a trial of Peter Lorre, a nightmarish reflection of the normal. Here, the Gestapo searches for murderer Brian Donleavy, taking hostages and shooting them, which causes Donleavy a lot of angst. Meanwhile, the Underground creates an illusion that it is a spy who has infiltrated their organization who has done the killing. So it becomes a race: can they convince the Nazis before the hostages are all killed? And are the deaths worth it to them?

There's a certain amount of standard WWII propaganda about the valiant people of the occupied countries, but Lang gets some startlingly good performances. You wouldn't expect Byron Foulger to be someone you'd want in your underground, nor for Jonathan Hale to be brave with a bullet in his lungs, but it's in movies like these, when skilled actors step out of their comfort zones, that tell the audience that they, too, can be brave. With Walter Brennan, Lionel Stander, Sara Padden, Dennis O'Keefe, Anna Lee, George Irving, and Reinhold Schünzel.

The Assassination of Heydrich, by Lang and Brecht

[ricardojorgeramalho · 7/10 · 16 January 2023]

A propaganda film, produced during World War II, written and directed by two of the most famous anti-Nazi Germans, exiled to the United States at the time, Fritz Lang and Berthold Brecht.

The story evokes the anti-Nazi resistance of the occupied Czechoslovak people, protecting the assassin of Reinhard Heydrich, the former head of the SS, head of the Reich Security Main Office and deputy Reich Protector in Bohemia and Moravia, even under the threat of death of hundreds of hostages, chosen among the most important civilian, religious and military figures in Czechoslovakia.

If the assassination was real, the story told in the film is fiction. But an interesting and well-woven plot, whose main objectives were to raise morale and honor of those who resisted the Nazi occupation in several European countries.

A great take on History

[AlecYager · 8/10 · 23 October 2020]

Although this film is not 100 percent historically accurate, it still captures the key event that took place during this time. And that was the murder of Reinhard Heydrich, the leader of the German second Reich. According to history it Heydrich was caught by a bullet of an unknown freedom fighter, well this film does a fantastic job of putting a character behind that "unknown" man and giving him a story line. In the film the Germans are scary, harsh, demanding, and will stop at nothing to get what they want. In other words, they played their roles rather realistically. Overall i was moderatley impressed with the film and enjoyed the fictional spinoff on a real murder.

overplotted

[deschreiber · 4 September 2011]

The names Fritz Lang and Bert Brecht (yes, he's called Bert, not Bertold, in the on screen credits) can go a long way to giving credit in a movie, but I think reviewers here are over-praising this film. First, I'd criticize the script as being overplotted, with too many tangles and endless complications, like a Baroque church with too many ornaments. Some of the dialogue has to be criticized, too. I know it was written during the war and served as a propaganda tool, but here we judge films as entertainment, maybe even art. At several points the movie stalls while a character speechifies, sounding oh-so-noble but at the same time oh-so-unnatural. People may act nobly in real life, but they seldom accompany their actions with little speeches aimed at some distant audience, beautiful cooked-up phrases for the ages. It's jarring, understandable perhaps because of the war, but it adds a false note to the realism of the film. Second, at one moment I was quite shocked at the directing. Fairly early in the story Natasha angrily accuses the assassin of cowardice for hiding while the hostages rounded up by the Nazis are paying the price with their lives. The way she leans forward over his desk, extending her arm to full length from the shoulder and jabbing it at him, not once but twice, looks completely unnatural. That's not the way a real person points an accusatory finger. It's obvious that the actress has had bad direction to move and pose in such a false manner.

Yes, this film is interesting to some extent, perhaps as a period piece. The plot complications, while over-done, at least create the air of something adult and intelligent. The outdoor scenes are all done on a stage set, so it doesn't have the benefit of complete authenticity.

I enjoyed seeing Walter Brennan playing an elderly professor with some brains, having had quite enough of his typecasting as a lovable but cantankerous old codger with that high-pitched, whiny voice of his.

Message movie

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 23 June 2021]

Another decent WW2 movie from Fritz Lang, this time looking at an assassination and the aftermath in the Nazi-occupied city of Prague. It's not the true story as told in ANTHROPOID and many others, but shines a light on crime and justice under the Nazis. Quite heavy at times, with a message at the forefront throughout, but also slowly engrossing and well acted by all of the cast, including a relatively youthful Brian Donlevy.

Bitter WW II movie

[willrams · 8/10 · 10 March 2003]

I saw this today for the first time on TCM TV. This is an apocryphal version of the assassination of the Nazi leader and Czech "protector" Reinhard Heydrich by resistance fighter in World War II. The assassin evades the widening Nazi dragnet in Czechoslovakia even to the point of self-sacrifice. The Nazis plan to provide an "assassin" who is actually a Czech traitor, played admirably by Gene Lockhart. Brian Donlevy plays Dr. Svoboda aka Karel Vansky and Anna Lee is Nasha Novotna with Dennis O'Keefe her fiance as Jan Horak. Many old movie oldtimers are in this film, and the intensity builds up to immense pitch. Some say this is all propoaganda by Hollywood, but lest we forget, it could happen here. I notice lately TCM and AMC TV are playing a great deal of the old WW II movies.

Wartime terror

[TheLittleSongbird · 7/10 · 6 December 2019]

Although 'Hangmen Also Die!' is interesting for its subject, which is enough to make anybody feel unsettled even those not easily so, my main interest point was the cast. Have in particular always thought most highly of Walter Brennan and Gene Lockhart, both of whom were great in other things. On paper, it did sound like the film would be a powerful and quite scary one, though there was potential for suspension of disbelief being needed.

'Hangmen Also Die!' is indeed a quite powerful film that was pretty brave for back then, way back when this particular reign of terror was at its peak. It is not a great film perhaps and is not for all, but it was one that stayed with me for some time after and made me think. Have a lot of admiration for Fritz Lang, with 'Metropolis' and 'M' being influential masterpieces, and while this is not one of his best films it hardly disgraces him, actually think it is one of his more interesting not-as-famous films Those that expect complete historical accuracy are best looking elsewhere and one is going to have a hard time believing Brennan and other cast members as Czechs, but there is still an awful lot to like about 'Hangmen Also Die!' and its staying power is definitely there.

Brian Donlevy is very wooden and never looks comfortable in his role, which is something of a big problem, and Alexander Granach overdoes it in his (one easy to overact and had real potential to, and it falls into that trap).

Maybe the film runs on for a little too long (making for some draggy stretches in the middle) and had more clarity in the storytelling, as it is sometimes over-complicated.

On the other hand, 'Hangmen Also Die!' is stylishly photographed, and it is both quite beautiful and full of atmosphere, and making an even bigger impression visually is the noir-ish lighting that is really quite eerie and enhances the frightening nature of the story. Hans Eisler's music score also enhances the unsettlement without over-doing it. Lang's direction is more than accomplished and he shows himself to be not just more than up to the job but the perfect director for it also. The script is taut enough and always intrigues, while the story mostly is compelling, quite tense and a real risk was taken making a film with such a damning and frightening account of what was happening at the time and without trivialising. Lockhart's subplot is especially gripping while the film began on a quite terrifying note.

Excepting Donlevy and Granach, the acting was fine. Lockhart in particular was riveting and a close second and third were Anna Lee, who really brightens up the screen, and Brennan, in a type of role that suited him to the ground and he plays it with a curmudgeonly charm and intensity (even if accepting him as a Czech is going to take a lot of time). Hans Heinrich von Twardowski is quite unnerving as Heydrich.

Concluding, not a great film but an interesting and well done one. 7/10

Somewhere the war goes on.

[Xjayhawker · 5/10 · 1 March 2013]

Here and there you see faces that popped up throughout the forties. Brian Donlevy and Walter Brennan. I see most people consider this Fritz Lang film of 1943 to be quite good. I truly wish I could concur. The Germans don't act like Germans in the office behind a desk. The film is two things..world war II propaganda and massive over dramatization.. It is a lot of over acting..only ever able Walter Brennan does somewhat of a decent job, but I am quite sure he knew this would not be anything but rousing the spirit of all oppressed under the boot heel of Adolph Hitler..No acting nominations came of this and the dialog doesn't come off as authentic..I wish I could urge you to see this, but I cannot. There are many old forgettable films..alas, this is one.Sorry! Good actors..not good acting.