This striking poster for Hangmen Also Die might make you think you’re dealing with a death row film noir, but it’s actually a war drama about the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. When a Czech assassin played by Brian Donlevy shoots the country’s cruel German administrator Reinhard Heydrich and escapes into Prague’s urban maze, the Nazis start executing people to force the population to turn over the shooter. As people die Donlevy struggles over whether to turn himself in.
This was made in 1943 and qualifies as war propaganda, complete with flourishes such as discordant brass when Hitler’s portrait appears onscreen, and a cheeseball closing song with a chorus of, “No surrender!” And to just bang the war drum even more, the movie premiered in, of all places, Prague, Oklahoma today in 1943, and the showing featured hanged effigies of Hitler, Hirohito, and Mussolini, while regional politicians made a point of attending. That must have been some night.
But while Hangmen Also Die may qualify as propaganda, it certainly isn’t untrue in any major sense. The film’s two architects, German director Fritz Lang and German writer Bertolt Brecht, both left their homeland to avoid the Nazis, and we can only imagine that their personal experiences made this project deeply important to them.
But even people working from personal experience need help, and they get a major boost from co-star Walter Brennan. You’ll sometimes read about him being a great character actor and this movie proves it. Watch him in this, then as the drunkard Eddie in To Have and Have Not, and you’ll find him physically unrecognizable. Only his distinctive voice identifies him as the same person. Meanwhile it’s Donlevy who’s asked to personify the classic moral dilemma of sacrifice for the greater good, and he’s mostly successful at portraying it as a heavy burden. While we wouldn’t call Hangmen Also Die a great movie, there’s no doubt it occupies its niche comfortably.
