THE MASTER RACE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 314, 29 June 1945, Page 19

THE MASTER RACE

(RKO-Radio)

‘THis story starts on D-Day and dramatises, within the small compass of one devastated Belgian town, some of the

problems of reconstruction now facing the victorious Allies throughout liberated Europe. So long as it sticks to known or obvious facts--such as the difficulty of reviving the will to live and work again in a stricken and depleted community — the film does a

pretty good and convincing job. But its major hypothesis is,that the defeated German High Command is still busily stirring up trouble in preparation for another war, working out a well-prepared plan through members of the military caste who are scattered over Europe in disguise. Since the film was actually completed well before VE-Day (an event which the story anticipates), RKORadio could only have known for certain. about the existence of this plot by being in the confidence of the German High Command. As this is not exactly probable, one must assume that the author of The Master Race was drawing on his imagination rather than on official evidence. But whatever the truth may be, the existence of an underground menace is a very useful hypothesis for the fictionwriter, and the film makes full use of the. melodramatic possibilities, with a eastly Nazi ex-officer (George Coulris) hiding out in the town and pretending to be an anti-Fascist, while all the time he is inciting the inhabitants against the British, American and Russian soldiers who are trying to put the place on its feet again. There is rather too much studied preaching about democracy in The Master Race, but it does also say some things that are worth saying, it does show some aspects of human nature that are worth showing, and it says them and shows them with rather more seriousness and intelligence than one normally expects from Hollywood. :