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31 reviews in total

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14 out of 15 people found the following review useful:
Accuracy of film, 23 March 2006

Author: bob-1135 from United Kingdom

I have studied the Heydrich assassination at some length as an historian, and the film does take some liberties with the facts. However this is to be expected as this is drama – not a documentary. The battle at the end does contain some errors such as the end of the agents in the main church, one was fatally wounded and the other two took poison, instead of being killed in the gun battle, but this in no way detracts from the overall accuracy of the film.

The battle in the crypt likewise ended with the four agents committing suicide by gunshot, rather than a mixture of enemy action and suicide.

I have been in the crypt many times and have never failed to be impressed by the astounding courage of these men.

'In their darkest hour they lit a beacon that illuminated the world'

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13 out of 14 people found the following review useful:
Excellent film on a difficult subject, 3 January 2006

Author: frank-ruddock from Canada

While not perfectly accurate in every respect, it is as near to accurate in all of the important respects: the incredible risks (personal and national) and courage of the Czechs; the importance of Heydrich and his cold, brutal and efficient nature; the ending for all involved, in which no punches are pulled; betrayals and loyalty; how, in military operations, always expect the unexpected. Good understated acting, appropriate to the real people. Portrayal of Heydrich equally understated and disturbingly normal. Great music. Haunting, gut-wrenching ending. Slow build-up to climax finely done. I saw the original in the 1970s; video purchased a few years ago is fine except the subtitles are missing for the short German-speaking parts (which I remember in any case). Key event of WWII: if anyone merited assassination, Heydrich did. Quite apart from his activities in "Bohemia and Moravia" where he was known as the "Butcher of Prague", his top position in the SS and police apparatus (second only to Himmler) and his key role in planning and executing the Holocaust left him with the blood of millions on his hands. Of interest, if you watch Wannseekonferenz (1984; German, with English subtitles) and Operation Daybreak back-to-back, you have a continuous and accurate portrayal of Heydrich's last months. The former covers the 90 minutes of the Wannsee meeting in January 1942 in Berlin in which Heydrich, as second most important police official in the Reich, coordinates the implementation and industrialization of the Final Solution, the latter covers from January to June (his death), in which he has added to his CV by becoming the political administrator of Czechoslovakia (also a likely clue to his future ambitions). The two films could not be more different (one almost a stage play, the other more suspense/action), but are unified by excellent portrayals of Heydrich. It also underlines that while the Czechs assassinated Heydrich for purely national reasons, there was no lack of other justifications. If you cannot obtain Wannseekonferenz, the more recent (2001) English remake (Conspiracy, with Kenneth Branagh) will do. IMDb members rate the German version (8.0) slightly higher than Conspiracy (7.7), a judgement I agree with.

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13 out of 14 people found the following review useful:
Brilliant film and, surprisingly, almost completely true, 16 January 2003

Author: david reed (d.reed@colart.co.uk) from London, England

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I have loved this film from the first time I saw it in 1977. Great music, amazing story and competent acting (Anton Diffring was brilliant and very, very scary just as Heydrich was supposed to be). I had to find out more about the story and, to my surprise, found out that it is almost completely true ( gun jamming, Heydrich dying ten days later, grassed up by one of their own, killing dozens of germans in the church, both committing suicide at the end etc etc). I noticed previous comments about this film have queried whether it was worth the sacrifice of thousands of innocent people to assassinate one man, namely, Heydrich. Well let me just fill you in on this monster ( The butcher of Prague, The Hangman ). It was Heydrich that was mainly responsible for the 'Final Solution' and in all probability 11,000,000 Jews would have been murdered if he had lived. Also he alone would have been responsible for the 'General Ost Plan', Hitlers determination to exterminate 30,000,000 ( yes 30,000,000 ) Slavs in Russia & Eastern Europe. One last point - Leningrad & Stalingrad would certainly have been German victories if Heydrich had lived. 40% of the wehrmacht (tanks and artillery) were produced in Czech protectorate factories. This production fell by 70% after Heydrich's death, and not surprisingly lead to the collapse of the Russian divisions, who relied mostly on the weaponry produced in Czechoslovakia. He was also in charge of the SD spying network which was incredibly successful.

Make up your own mind - great film though.

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11 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
Very good classic movie, 13 January 2004
Author: Peter Makres (pmakres1@msn.com) from Largo, Florida

I first saw this movie back in 1976 when HBO, I believe, was making a run of it. It was a riveting movie I never forgot; I taped it from network TV about 12 years ago, and I recently started watching it again. Next I ordered the VHS tape, which arrived today and it is excellent, including quite a few scenes that the network version omits. The only problem is, as one viewer points out, is that in this version there is no subtitles, so you miss some of the dialog in the parts that are spoken in German. (The network version includes the subtitles, but is missing some scenes). The sound quality on the prerecorded VHS version is quite good if played back on a VHS hi-fi deck with a good sound system. I wish this movie were available on DVD! If anyone hears of it becoming available on DVD, please let me know! Hopefully a future DVD release will address the subtitle problem. It is indeed surprising how little attention this movie got. I even ordered a couple of books on Heydrich from Amazon, as well as the novel "Seven men at Daybreak" on which the movie is based. I find that the movie is nearly completely accurate. An excellent movie that anyone interested in history should see at least once.

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7 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
One not to be missed, 21 September 2007

Author: ni-8 from Occupied Palestinian Territory

Yes the music does date the film (were ARP synthesisers ever a good thing) but does that matter? No!!

Some poetic licence is taken with the facts (how Jan Kubis really died or the romance with Anna) but the portrayal of the occupiers, particularly Reichsprotektor Heydrich in no way understated how heinous these people were.

The depiction of siege at St Cyril's conveys a whole range of emotions as tension builds. The motivation of the resistance was unquestionably heroic at this part of the episode.

This is so much more than an action story. However the issues tend to be portrayed in a very polar black / white manner. Even Karel Chudra's motivation is shown in very clear terms (he is treated far less sympathetically in Czech history). It is unfortunate that the film did not have time to develop the political tension between London and the local resistance. How aware was London of the probability of reprisals following the assassination? Was it their intention that reprisals would do more to stir local opposition to the occupation than the assassination itself? Why did Karel Moravec later take his own life?

Overall, however, this is a film to see and for the most part it is very realistic. Visit Prague and leave the tourist traps to see St Cyril's - it looks just like the movie and is almost guaranteed to make you cry for all the victims of the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia.

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7 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
Flawed but deeply moving..., 7 January 2005

Author: Roheryn2003 from Canada

I've seen this several times now and I can never watch the end of this movie. My husband and I watched it again last night and I simply broke down and cried for ten minutes. Such waste of young lives... To read the later fates of the characters in the credits was particularly wrenching. Very good performances, foremost of which must be Anton Difring. Beautiful use was made of Prague's older quarters. Unlike many I didn't like the music at all; I felt the subject deserved better. One wonders what the widow and daughter of Heinrich thought of the destruction of Lidice and its subsequent reincarnation in the aftermath of the war.

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7 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
brilliant film and ideally I would like a video or DVD!, 26 April 2004

Author: Angliaman (david@tyddnest.freeserve.co.uk) from East Anglia

Just wanted to say that i particularly like this film. It was good to see the late British based speaking actor Anton Differing play Heydrich. I remember him as a German officer in the castle in Where Eagles Dare another great war movie. I am definately after a VHS or DVD copy of this film if available. I am having no luck getting a VHS even from major stores like Virgin. So if anyone knows if this film is to be launched on DVD or where I can get a VHS copy, let me know thanks.

In 2004 in February, I caught it on Sky Cinema 1 or 2 (UK) at my sisters, but too late to tape. If anyone reading this knows this film is doing the rounds on SKY or Turner Classic Movies, please e-mail me.

I also liked the music and wondered if it was ever commercially available on a CD?

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7 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
This is a seemingly accurate telling of the events around the assassination of Heydrich., 21 June 2000

Author: FISHER L. FORREST (fisherforrest@sprintmail.com) from Jacksonville, OR, USA

This detailed account of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in 1942, and the tragic aftermath, is likely about as accurate as any dramatic film is likely to be on the subject. The Nazis took an appallingly vicious revenge, and this film is a compelling, somewhat flawed, saga of the great tragedy that is war and conquest. Was the killing of Heydrich, the "Hangman" to the Czechs, really necessary, considering the consequences? It must have seemed so to the British brass and the willing Czech volunteers, but one wonders what the completely uninvolved victims in Lidice may have thought. Viewed as part of the overall slaughter of millions in the course of WW2, these were small numbers of victims, but is even one death negligible? Did Heydrich's removal shorten the war at all? You will have to find your own answers.

As a cinematic action film, this is not an especially inspired production. The story of the parachuting in from British RAF planes of an assassination team proceeds rather slowly until the final battle at the church where the seven partisans were hiding. The German efforts to dislodge them are shown in a detail that may owe something to extrapolation from the facts. Who knows? In any case this is the exciting part of the film. As shown the seven wiped out simply hordes of attacking Germans before the last two took their own lives. There is no question but that in reality the partisans put up quite a fight. They would have had no incentive to surrender meekly to Nazi "mercy".

Acting, except for the very convincing portrayal of Heydrich by Anton Diffring, is generally lackluster, with a few exceptions, and the editing can only be described as choppy. The language convention may seem a tad strange. Conversations that would obviously have been in Czech, are given in English. Conversations in German, occur in German, without subtitles. If you aren't fluent in German, you may miss some nuances. Since few of the cast are Czechs, there is not much slavic flavor evident. Who knows, this may enhance the more universal message that "war is hell". Oh, and did Gabcik and Kubis really take their own lives at the end?

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8 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
A superb film that is almost vanishing from recognition., 26 August 1999

Author: Kalki

Films like this go unheard of and are severely underrated. Various war movies of that genre have fallen out of favor among new audiences. May not be a bad thing, but nevertheless these are well made classics and they should be revisited once in a while.

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3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Great war movie, 30 March 2006

Author: Jorge Salcedo from Mexico

I saw this picture 20 years ago, and it is one of my favorite all time movies. I do not care for war themed movies, but this movie offered a great story, as well as suspense and added a very human touch, and sensibility.

I do not remember where it was shot, but the movie is beautiful. Friendship, betrayal, rage, anguish can be felt. Acting was wonderful, the actor who interpreted the Heydrich was scary, and Timothy Bottoms was awesome.

I just wish that I can see it once more, they do not show it on TV, plus it is hard to find at stores or rental places.

If you have the chance to see it, I am sure that you will agree with me.

Thanks

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