"THE HITLER GANG"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 291, 19 January 1945, Page 14

"THE HITLER GANG"

(Paramount)

FOR reasons which will appear in the course of this review, our little man feels it impossible to applaud The Hitler

Gang. At the same time, he would like it understood from the start that his reaction was something more than just the polite interest which the grading suggests. On the technical side, The Hitler Gang deserves full marks. It is a triumph for Paramount’s make-up man (Wally Westmore) and for the comparatively unknown actors who portray the leading characters. It will be interesting to see what the future holds for them, for to say that he is the dead spit of Hitler, or Hess, or Himmler is a doubtful compliment to pay anybody. Yet, as the illustrations here indicate, the representation is g0 good, particularly in the case of Hitler, that even when authentic newsreel shots. of the Fuehrer are included, they do not make the play-acting seem false; The makeup artist is not alone responsible for this uncanny likeness: there is much good acting as well, and it is not Robert Watson’s fault that his portrayal of Hitler sometimes reminds one of Charlie Chaplin and, in some of the body movements, of Stan Laurel! In the case of Goebbels and Goering, the physical resemblance is not so close, but Martin Kosleck makes up for this by achieving exactly that mixture of cynicism and snake-like cleverness which is popularly attributed to Goebbels; and though Alexander Pope lacks some of Goering’s girth, he packs plenty of vanity and _ cold-blooded ferocity inside his uniform. In some respects, then, The Hitler Gang ‘is a remarkable production. It is certainly not light entertainment — indeed, I have some hesitation "in labelling it entertainment at all -- but I would recommend you to see it if you are interested in a demonstration of the cinema’s technical ingenuity along the propagandist line, and are not squeam-

ish about gruesome details. According to the foreword with the picture, this account of how Hitler and his followers rose to power is as authentic "as decency would permit,’ and even this restraint is, in parts, very cleverly overcome by subtle suggestion. * * * N other respects, however, The Hitler Gang is disturbing and even alarm-ing-and I am not now referring to its subject-matter. If, as I said the other week, q documentary film like World of Plenty offers an example of what the cinema may achieve as propaganda when it is directed with skill and intelligence towards constructive ends, then The Hitler Gang is an equally illuminating example of what it might do when turned in the other direction. The point is that whether The Hitler Gang is, or is not, completely authentic, it certainly looks it. Indeed, a film like this makes one wonder whether we may not have to revise our whole conception of historical method, now that the cinema has entered the field as the most powerful mass educational medium of all. We have probably by now just about got Napoleon into proper’ focus but, seeing The Hitler Gang, one may

speculate on what would now be the popular view of Napoleon and the French if British propagandists of that period had been able to use all the technical resources which are available to-day. If they had, in brief, been able to make a contemporary film called "The Napoleon Gang." * * od ORE to the immediate point perhaps are two other considerations. The Hitler Gang starts with the capitulation of Germany in 1918, and traces the rise of Hitler and the Nazis through the premature Munich BeerHall putsch of 1923 and the Reichstag Fire up to the Blood Purge of June, 1934, when, with Roehm and his henchmen eliminated, Hitler was firmly entrenched in supreme command and launched his pian of conquest. Apart from such problematical side-issues as the Fuehrer’s infatuation for his niece, Geli Rabaul, whom he is alleged to have seduced and then murdered, this is a story with which all of us are already quite familiar, and I doubt whether it was worth going to such (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) enormous trouble to retell it now, especially as the most interesting portion must necessarily be omitted. I mean, of course, the end of the story. Though the Blood Purge of 1934 is certainly not the climax of Hitler’s career, it is in the film. After that, the whole thing just fizzles out in a few pompous sentences. Even more debatable, however, is the film’s interpretation of Hitler, his motives, and the forces which created him. There is much the same psychological mistake made here as occurred in The Great Dictator, when Chaplin made light of Hitler: in fact, treated him as a joke. The Hitler Gang certainly does not regard him as funny, but it still refuses to treat him with proper seriousness. He is presented as just a theatrical little egomaniac, a mountebank, strgmg in the lungs but weak in the head, who appeared almost out of the blue, collected a gang of ruffians around him and, with some encouragement from the German High Command but mostly by force and cunning, imposed himself on the German people. To treat Nazism in this shallow fashion and Hitler and his folowers as nothing but political opportunists and gangsters is to make nonsense of world history and to ignore those spasms of world malaise which threw up Hitler and his kind. According to this screen interpretation, Hitler threw himself up: he is not just a symptom of general disease, but the whole disease itself. Destroy Hitler and Europe will be well again-or so the film suggests. So, while The Hitler Gang will be viewed with interest by students of the cinema and may even be enjoyed by ° those who find comfort in the idea of a personal devil, others may not ‘find it so reassuring-especially if they regard what has just been happening on the Western Front as another example: of what is to be expected when we are’ guilty of over-confidence and oversimplification; when we look upon" Hitler as ‘merely a cheap and nasty | little maniac.