Alan Curtis-Patricia Morison in Hitler's Madman

''Hitler's Madman'' is a 1943

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

drama directed by

Douglas Sirk Douglas Sirk (born Hans Detlef Sierck; 26 April 1897 – 14 January 1987) was a German film director best known for his work in Hollywood melodramas of the 1950s. Sirk started his career in Germany as a stage and screen director, but he left fo ...

. It is a highly fictionalized account of the 1942 assassination of Nazi official Reinhard Heydrich and the resulting

Lidice massacre The Lidice massacre was the complete destruction of the village of Lidice in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, now the Czech Republic, in June 1942 on orders from Adolf Hitler and the successor of the ''Reichsführer-SS'' Heinrich Himmler ...

, which the

Germans , native_name_lang = de , region1 = , pop1 = 72,650,269 , region2 = , pop2 = 534,000 , region3 = , pop3 = 157,000 3,322,405 , region4 = , pop4 = ...

committed as revenge. The film stars

Patricia Morison Eileen Patricia Augusta Fraser Morison (March 19, 1915 – May 20, 2018) was an American stage, television and film actress of the Golden Age of Hollywood and mezzo-soprano singer. She made her feature film debut in 1939 after several years on ...

and Alan Curtis and features

John Carradine John Carradine ( ; born Richmond Reed Carradine; February 5, 1906 – November 27, 1988) was an American actor, considered one of the greatest character actors in American cinema. He was a member of Cecil B. DeMille's stock company and later Jo ...

Reinhard Heydrich Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich ( ; ; 7 March 1904 – 4 June 1942) was a high-ranking German SS and police official during the Nazi era and a principal architect of the Holocaust. He was chief of the Reich Security Main Office (inclu ...

. ''Hitler's Madman'' was Sirk's first American production after fleeing Nazi Germany and abandoning his German name of Detlef Sierck. The screenplay was written by

Peretz Hirschbein Peretz Hirshbein ( yi, פרץ הירשביין;7 November 1880, Melnik, Kleszczele, Grodno Governorate – 16 August 1948, Los Angeles) was a Yiddish-language playwright, novelist, journalist, travel writer, and theater director. Because h ...

, Melvin Levy, and

Doris Malloy Doris Malloy (1901–1955) was an American screenwriter active during the 1920s through the 1940s. Biography Born in Gloversville, New York, in 1901 to Henry Malloy (noted as a "prominent gambler" in a few publicity items) and Kate Huckans, Do ...

, from a story by Bart Lytton, with some uncredited contributions by Edgar G. Ulmer.

Plot

Lidice Lidice (, german: Liditz) is a municipality and village in Kladno District in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 600 inhabitants. Lidice is built near the site of the previous village of the same name, which was co ...

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

, 1942 – The opening verses of

Edna St. Vincent Millay Edna St. Vincent Millay (February 22, 1892 – October 19, 1950) was an American lyrical poet and playwright. Millay was a renowned social figure and noted feminist in New York City during the Roaring Twenties and beyond. She wrote much of he ...

’s poem ''The Murder of Lidice'' are recited over images of the bucolic Czech village. Villager Jan Hanka watches a British plane fly overhead, carrying Karel Vavra, a Czech paratrooper being dropped over his hometown to form resistance cells. Karel goes to the Hanka house, in search of daughter Jarmilla, his girlfriend since childhood. Mrs. Hanka asks Karel to take refuge in the forest. Jarmilla finds him there later. They profess their undying love and she sends him to a cave, where he discovers local vagabond, Nepomuk, who agrees to help. Nepomuk gathers villagers at the cave. Karel asks them to sabotage the German war effort. Jan, the most respected villager, warns them it’s too dangerous. They sheepishly depart. In Prague, the fearsome SS Reichsprotektor

decides to start executing intellectuals, who he believes organize the resistance. He interrupts a university class attended by villager Klara and arrests the teacher and students. The male students are sent as cannon fodder on the Russian Front. The women are inspected for use as sex slaves in brothels for German soldiers. Klara throws herself from a window to her death, to avoid this fate. Having lost his daughter Klara, Villager Janek dynamites the coal mine, to deny its product to the Germans. Jan catches his daughter teaching children the Czech national anthem, even though teaching is forbidden by the Germans. Jan argues she needs to be more careful. She calls him a coward. The next day, Heydrich happens to drive through Lidice during the annual harvest blessing parade. Angered to find the road blocked, he plows through the parade and shoots the town priest, Father Cemlanek, horrifying the townsfolk. Lidice Mayor Bauer, a German Nazi true-believer, prepares with his wife for the arrival of their two sons, on leave from the Russian Front. Heydrich’s adjutant tells Bauer the Reichsprotektor was displeased by the parade blocking his route and expects no impediments when he drives through the next morning. A telegram arrives, telling the Bauers their boys are both dead. Bauer accepts it as the price the Führer demands, but Mrs, Bauer is sickened and blames Hitler for their death. She goes to the church and sees Jan. Disgusted with the Nazis, Frau Bauer tells Jan what time Heydrich will drive through town tomorrow. Jan, Karel, Jarmilla and Nepomuk ambush Heydrich’s limousine the next morning, as it approaches the town. Jarmilla creates a distraction, as the men fire machine guns and throw a grenade. They leave thinking they killed him, but they’ve only gravely wounded him. Jan sends Karel and Jarmilla off to hide in the forest, blessing their future marriage. The Nazi authorities in Prague, desperate to find Heydrich’s assailants, decide to take hostages among local villagers. Jan Hanka gets locked up in the town jail as a hostage. The SS arrests Mayor Bauer for failing to stop the ambush on Heydrich. Bauer protests as they drag him off that he’s a loyal Nazi. Jarmilla and Karel are chased by Germans in the forest. Jarmilla gets shot and dies in Karel’s arms. In Prague, Heydrich lies near death. His superior,

Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of th ...

arrives from Berlin and watches Heydrich die, in agony, saying he won’t die for Hitler and that the war is lost, unless everyone gets as tough as he is. After he dies, Himmler gets a call from Hitler and tells him Heydrich died praising him and saying Germany would win the war. Himmler orders the village of Lidice eradicated for its role in Heydrich’s death. The Germans march into Lidice and herd the inhabitants into the square. They force the men into the churchyard and take the women and children off in trucks, to concentration camps. As the Germans line machine guns in front of the men, the villagers all start singing the Czech national anthem before the Germans shoot them all. Jan, forgotten in his jail cell, watches as the Germans set fire to the town., then fire artillery onto it, burying Jan within the rubble. In a postscript, the ghostly citizens of Lidice walk toward the camera, obscured by a wall of flames, reciting the final verses of Millay’s poem.

Cast

as Jarmilla Hanka *

* Alan Curtis as Karel Vavra *

Howard Freeman Howard Freeman (December 9, 1899 – December 11, 1967) was an American actor of the early 20th century, and film and television actor of the 1940s through the 1960s. Biography Freeman was born in Helena, Montana, and began working as ...

Ralph Morgan Raphael Kuhner Wuppermann (July 6, 1883 – June 11, 1956), known professionally as Ralph Morgan, was a Hollywood stage and film character actor, and the older brother of Frank Morgan. Early life Morgan was born in New York City, the eig ...

as Jan Hanka *

Edgar Kennedy Edgar Livingston Kennedy (April 26, 1890 – November 9, 1948) was an American comedic character actor who appeared in at least 500 films during the silent and sound eras. Professionally, he was known as "Slow Burn", owing to his ability to por ...

as Nepomuk *

Ludwig Stössel Ludwig Stössel (12 February 1883 – 29 January 1973) was an actor born in Lockenhaus, now Austria, then Hungary. He was one of many Jewish actors and actresses who were forced to flee Germany when the Nazis came to power in 1933. Biography St ...

as Herman Bauer *

Al Shean Abraham Elieser Adolph Schönberg (May 12, 1868 – August 12, 1949), known as Al Shean, was a comedian and vaudeville performer. Other sources give his birth name variously as Adolf Schönberg, Albert Schönberg, or Alfred Schönberg. He is mos ...

as Father Cemlanek * Elizabeth Russell as Maria Bartonek *

Jimmy Conlin Jimmy Conlin (October 14, 1884 – May 7, 1962) was an American character actor who appeared in almost 150 films in his 32-year career. Career Conlin was born in Camden, New Jersey in 1884, and his acting career started out in vaudeville, ...

as Dvorak * Louis V. Arco (uncredited) as German Sergeant *

Richard Ryen Richard Ryen (13 September 1885 – 22 December 1965) was a Hungarian-born actor who was expelled from Germany by the Nazis prior to World War II. Early life Ryen was born Richard Anton Robert Felix Revy in Hungary. He began working in Germany a ...

(uncredited) as Gestapo *

Ava Gardner Ava Lavinia Gardner (December 24, 1922 – January 25, 1990) was an American actress. She first signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew critics' attention in 1946 with her perform ...

(uncredited) as Franciska Pritric *

Lester Dorr Lester Dorr (born Harry Lester Dorr; May 8, 1893 – August 25, 1980) was an American actor who between 1917 and 1975 appeared in well over 500 productions on stage, in feature films and shorts, and in televised plays and weekly series. Even a ...

(uncredited) as Sergeant

Production

The film was produced independently by

Seymour Nebenzal Seymour Nebenzal (22 July 1899 – 23 September 1961) was an American-born Jewish-German film producer. He produced 46 films between 1927 and 1961. Biography Germany He got into film production through his father Heinrich Nebenzahl (1870– ...

under the auspices of the

Producers Releasing Corporation Producers Releasing Corporation was the smallest and least prestigious of the Hollywood film studios of the 1940s. It was considered a prime example of what was called "Poverty Row": a low-rent stretch of Gower Street in Hollywood where shoest ...

,''Hitler's Madman''
, Turner Classic Movies page a "

Poverty Row Poverty Row is a slang term used to refer to Hollywood films produced from the 1920s to the 1950s by small (and mostly short-lived) B movie studios. Although many of them were based on (or near) today's Gower Street in Hollywood, the term did n ...

" studio, and filmed in one week in November 1942, under the title of ''Hitler's Hangman''. The title was changed to ''Hitler's Madman'' to avoid confusion with Fritz Lang's similarly themed ''

Hangmen Also Die! ''Hangmen Also Die!'' is a 1943 noir war film directed by the Austrian director Fritz Lang and written by John Wexley from a story by Bertolt Brecht (credited as Bert Brecht) and Lang. The film stars Hans Heinrich von Twardowski, Brian Donlevy, W ...

''.

Filming

Sirk hired German cinematographer

Eugen Schüfftan Eugen Schüfftan (21 July 1893, in Breslau, Silesia, Germany, now Wroclaw, Poland – 6 September 1977, in New York City) was a German cinematographer. He invented the Schüfftan process, a special effects technique that employed mirrors to in ...

to shoot the film, but because Schüfftan was not allowed to work in the United States at the time, the cinematography credit was given to Jack Greenhalgh and Schüfftan was credited as "Technical Director." The film opens and closes with

's 1942 poem, " The Murder of Lidice". Sirk directed reshoots at MGM's own studios in May 1943, consisting of the inspection of the female university students and Klara's resulting suicide (during which an uncredited

appears), Heydrich's death scenes, and the shooting of the male residents of Lidice.

Release

The film was originally set to be released through

Republic Pictures Republic Pictures Corporation (currently held under Melange Pictures, LLC) was an American motion picture production-distribution corporation in operation from 1935 to 1967, that was based in Los Angeles. It had studio facilities in Studio City an ...

. However, when it was completed, Nebenzal arranged a screening for MGM chief

Louis B. Mayer Louis Burt Mayer (; born Lazar Meir; July 12, 1882 or 1884 or 1885 – October 29, 1957) was a Canadian-American film producer and co-founder of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios (MGM) in 1924. Under Mayer's management, MGM became the film industr ...

, who bought it, making it one of the few, and possibly the first, film to be distributed by MGM even though it was originally produced by another company.

Notes

External links

* * * * {{Douglas Sirk 1943 films American black-and-white films Films directed by Douglas Sirk Producers Releasing Corporation films Films about Operation Anthropoid World War II films made in wartime Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films Films produced by Seymour Nebenzal Films scored by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco Films scored by Nathaniel Shilkret American war drama films 1940s war drama films Films set in the Czech Republic Cultural depictions of Heinrich Himmler 1943 drama films Films scored by Karl Hajos American World War II films 1940s English-language films