UNDERGROUND
(Warner Brothers)
EST any others are tempted, as I was, to trade a quiet evening by the fire for a mess of sabotage, let me say that Underground is not a
picture about oppressed Europe biting the heels of the conquering herrenvolk. There are a lot of other things it is not, and the most important of these negatives is that it is not topical. For Underground is just another (and lesser) Freedom Radio, a film about the dauntless German social-democrats (and others), who bring their fellow-country-men news behind the news-‘"in spite of the Gestapo." That phrase, which is used once or twice in the dialogue, unquestionably dates the film. Now if it were a story about a French freedom radio or a Greek or a Yugoslavian ore, the propaganda would at least be nearer the mark. : I’d like to be able to say tyat, topicality and propaganda apart, and viewed simply as entertainment, the film is good enough to compensate for the time-lag between production and screening. But it isn’t. The acting of Jeffrey Lynn, Kaaren Verne, and Philip Dorn is only passable, and direction which, to arouse our horror of Nazi tyranny, requires shots of Gestapo beatings and an execution scene with only the most unkindest cut cut out, is surely inadequate.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 163, 7 August 1942, Page 16
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215UNDERGROUND New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 163, 7 August 1942, Page 16
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