A YANK IN DUTCH

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 244, 25 February 1944, Page 25

A YANK IN DUTCH

(Columbia)

HOLLYwoop’s current idea of an uproariously funny fellow is a Nazi. He is the perfect butt for all the jokes one likes to crack and all the custard-pies

one likes to throw. Ii is a view not likely to be sustained by anybody who has had actual contact with Nazis, but you can see how the idea works out in A Yank in Dutch whete Franchot Tone, as an American in the R:A.F. forced down’ in Holland, twists a Gestapo major (Allyn Joslyn) round his little finger and finally leaves him in his underwear looking ridiculously like Hitler. In this highspirited tomfoolery the Yank has the eager co-operation of a Dutch family who certainly give no impression of having suffered any subduing of the spirit during nearly four years of German occupation. Nor much material hardship either: it is the elegant, silk-clad legs and trimly-tailored figure of Mevrouw, Joan Bennett, that lure the Nazi major into one discomfiture after another. Well, it’s nice to know that life in Occupied Europe is so jolly. And of course the film shouldn’t be taken seriously .. . Or shouldn’t it? I see that it is described as a "satire," but satire to be effective demands a sstiletto-sharp point, and this film employs a bludgeon -or rather a clown’s bladder-to get its laughs (and there are several). And there is also the consideration, which I have, mentioned previously, that when we make fools of our enemies like this we are really making fools of ourselves. If the Germans are as stupid as many of our film producers are so fond of presenting them, we shouldn’t now be in the fifth year of war and the end not yet in sight.