HOSTAGES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 279, 27 October 1944, Page 13

HOSTAGES

(Paramount)

ANOTHER Hollywood, story of Europe’s this time from the "C" pigeonhole (Czech). A Nazi lieuten-

ant in Prague commits suicide; the Nazis, for their own wicked reasons, decide to regard it as murder, and collect hostages. There are 26 of them, but for the purposes of the story only two are important--one (Oscar Homolka) because he is a Czech mine-owner and a thorough-going collaborationist and has a daughter; the other (William Bendix) because he is, in spite of his stupid looks, the Genius of the Underground Movement. The .Nazis at first don’t realise what a rich haul they have made. When they do check up on the identity of the collaborationist they decide to shoot him anyway and keep his mines exclusively for themselves: but by the time they, have identified the stupid cloak-room attendant as the underground genius, he has managed to escape. Meanwhile the collaborationist’s daughter, who began by trying to rescue her father by bribery, has started collaborating with the Underground and is in love with one of its members (Arturo de Cordova). Though they don’t succeed in saving the old man or the other 24 hostages, they do succeed in saving their own skins from the Gestapo, while the Genius and his followers succeed most spectacularly, if improbably, in blowing up the Prague waterfront. If this resumé appears a trifle involved I can only remark that it is simple compared with the story as a whole, which continually ties itself in knots with the object (a) of demonstrating the inefficiency and sadism of the Nazis, and (b) of giving a remarkably cosmopolitan cast of players the chance to exercise a wide variety of talents and accents. Among the players, the most interesting piece of casting is that of the Greek actress, Katina Paxinou, as one of the Underground; the most curious is that of William Bendix (who has made his name as a 100 per cent. Bowery type) as the Czech genius; and the most depressing is that of Luise Rainer as the collaborationist’s daughter. This is Miss Rainer’s first appearance since she walked out of Hollywood in 1939 with the vow that she would never return. It is a pity she didn’t keep it, for the explosion which wrecks the Prague waterfront in the final scene of Hostages is scarcely less shattering than the effect this film will have on any reputation as a front-rank per-. former which Miss Rainer may still have left. How on earth did we ever get the idea that she was a great actress? (Yet she must have been fairly good to win those two Academy Awards.) Her whole idea of acting now is simply to show the whites of her eyes whenever she comes within camera-range-a technique which must be even more disconcerting to her fellow-players than it is to the audience. :