Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. (1999)

A cinematic portrait of the life and career of the infamous American execution device designer and holocaust denier.

Director:

Errol Morris

Stars:

Fred A. Leuchter Jr., Robert Jan Van Pelt, David Irving

1 win & 8 nominations.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Fred A. Leuchter Jr.	...	Self (as Fred Leuchter)
Robert Jan Van Pelt	...	Self
David Irving	...	Self
Caroline Leuchter	...	Self (voice)
James Roth	...	Self - Analytical Chemist
Shelly Shapiro	...	Self
Suzanne Tabasky	...	Self
Ernst Zündel	...	Self
David Collins	...	Re-enactment cast
Daniel Polsby	...	Re-enactment cast
Jeff Brown	...	Re-enactment cast
Robert Duerr	...	Re-enactment cast

Storyline

Documentary about Fred Leuchter, an engineer who became an expert on execution devices and was later hired by revisionist historian Ernst Zundel to "prove" that there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz. Leuchter published a controversial report confirming Zundel's position, which ultimately ruined his own career. Most of the footage is of Leuchter, puttering around execution facilities or chipping away at the walls of Auschwitz, but Morris also interviews various historians, associates, and neighbors.

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Plot Keywords:

death in title | execution | auschwitz | revisionist | gas chamber | 

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Genres:

Documentary | Biography

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for thematic elements

Did You Know?

Trivia

All of the states which bought one of Leuchter's lethal injection machines have subsequently stopped using them because they were too difficult to operate and maintain.

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Quotes

Fred A. Leuchter Jr.: The human body is not easy to destroy and it's not easy to take a life humanely and painlessly without doing a great deal of damage to the individual's body.

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Connections

Features Triumph of the Will (1935)

User Reviews

A distinctive presentation of fascinating material

Leuchter is an expert in execution technology (designer of electric chairs, gas chambers, etc.), whose career was wiped out when he got swept up in the Holocaust revisionism movement (he testified, as an expert witness in a defamation suit, that the Auschwitz crematoria could not and did not serve as gas chambers). In this vivid documentary, Morris lets Leuchter speak for himself (which reveals him to be a man of limited horizons with a - let's say - quirky moral code, likely undone by hubris rather than evil [although Morris may deliberately be making that as far as possible an eye-of-the-beholder issue]), while providing a blizzard of visual accompaniments that emphasize the lurid raw material of Leuchter's life (a strategy indicated by the B-movie undertone of the title), and flirt with his obvious sense of his own heroism. Leuchter has more than enough rope here to hang himself, and pretty much gets the job done. Morris doesn't try to explore the issue of Holocaust revisionism generally, pretty much taking our revulsion on faith: if anything, from my limited previous reading on the subject, that's doing Leuchter a favor. Anyway, revulsion or not, it's hard not to be fascinated by a man who can calmly chatter about his value-pricing approach to selling death machines (although custom made, he tells us, they're sold at "off the shelf" prices).

Details

Country:

USA UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

14 January 2000 (USA)

Also Known As:

Mr. Death

Filming Locations:

Poland

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$24,125, 2 January 2000

Gross USA:

$507,941

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$507,941

Company Credits

Production Co:

Independent Film Channel (IFC), Channel Four, Fourth Floor Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

91 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1