Passport to Destiny (1944)

Director:

Ray McCarey

Writers:

Muriel Roy Bolton (writer)
Val Burton (writer)

Release Date:

31 January 1944 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | War

Plot:

A British cleaning woman believes a glass eye has magical powers that will protect her from harm. She travels from London to Berlin and manages to obtain a job as a cleaning woman at Hitler's headquarters. However, her assassination plan is foiled. But, she and other secret agents manage to escape to London during RAF bombing raid of the Reich Chancery. |

Plot Keywords:

Hitler | Nazi | Beautiful Woman

Cast

Elsa Lanchester	...	Ella Muggins
Gordon Oliver	...	Capt. Franz von Weber
Lenore Aubert	...	Grete Neumann
Lionel Royce	...	Sturmfuehrer Karl Dietrich
Fritz Feld	...	Chief Janitor
Joseph Vitale	...	Lt. Bosch
Gavin Muir	...	Herr Joyce / Lord Haw-Haw
Lloyd Corrigan	...	Prof. Frederick Walthers
Anita Sharp-Bolster	...	Agnes (as Anita Bolster)
Lydia Bilbrook	...	Millie
Lumsden Hare	...	Freighter Captain Mack
Hans Schumm	...	Miniger, Dietrich's Aide

Also Known As:

Magnificent Adventure (USA) (working title)
Passport to Adventure (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

65 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Australia:PG

Company:

RKO Radio Pictures

Trivia:

Rudolf Hess was a Nazi official, Deputy to Adolf Hitler, who flew to the UK I 1941 in an attempt to broker a peace.

Goofs:

Factual errors: When Ella and he companions escape from the prison, they drive off in a right hand drive car, normal for the UK but not for Germany.

Elsa Lanchester scrubs her way across Occupied Europe

This is surely one of the most extraordinary films to have come out of America during the war. It is also notable for being the only Hollywood movie in which Elsa Lanchester, best known as The Bride of Frankenstein, had the lead part and top billing. She plays a cockney charlady who is convinced she's protected by a "lucky charm" once owned by her late husband (cut to a photo of Charles Laughton) and is resolved to assassinate Hitler. During the London blitz, armed only with her bucket and a mop, she stows away on a ship across the English Channel and proceeds to scrub her way across Occupied Europe by pretending to be deaf and dumb. She lands up in Hitler's HQ in Berlin where language problems are solved by all the 'bad' Germans speaking English with funny guttural accents! Elsa gets a job as a cleaner in Hitler's office but he's out at the time so she delivers a propaganda-like speech to his empty chair. Some 'good' Germans opposed to Hitler (they all speak English with American accents) whisk Elsa back to England in a stolen plane. She is hailed as a heroine only to discover that the "lucky charm" she took with her was part of a job-lot of glass eyes! An absolutely priceless movie, and one which at the end is dedicated to the fighting US forces overseas. One can only wonder what they made of it.