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Micransix Crappy film

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

howardeisman I saw this movie when it first came out. My age group cohort, the males anyway, still remember this movie fondly. Every kid saw it. Of course it's ridiculous, in the same way the Three Stooges are ridiculous. We wouldn't criticize our three stooge friends for not being realistic.At the time this movie came out, Americans didn't know about concentration camps and the Holocaust. Thus, the silliness of this film can be expected to fall flat for adults who watch it now. However, laughing at Hitler gang movies was quite common in 42, 43, 44. It was a common recreation.I will also add that this was Ward Bond's only starring role in his long movie career.

CelluloidRehab I am continuing my "dead or alive" theme with this little war-time propaganda soporific. Before Blood Diamond, Gorillas in the Mist and The Forbidden Dance, Ward Bond went in to Germany via Canada and Great Britain, to kill Adolf Schicklgruber (a.k.a Adolf Hitler). Now I see where the inspiration for Coleman Francis' Red Zone Cuba came from. I will summarize the main points : Steve Maschick (Bond) has just been released from Alcatraz for tax evasion, after serving an 11 year of 12 stint, with his cronies "The Book" (Paul Fix, Alumni of Night of the Lepus) and "Dutch" (the handicap-able Warrne Hymer). The same day a rich tycoon puts up a $1,000,000 reward for the killing of Schicklgruber (Hilter.... oh Monty!!). To set the record straight. A bunch of beer swilling low-level criminal mobsters want to infiltrate the deepest corners of the Third Reich and assassinate Hitler. The plan, none. It's all improvised. Colonel "Hannibal" Smith would have said something about "jazz" at this point.I'm done with the plot at this point. I will continue by sharing with you some of the intricacies of this sublime stain. They must have been working with a very, very limited budget. The cockpit of the paratrooper plane looks like a giant room, with an oval arch. The pilot is sitting down in a chair, "acting" like he's looking out the window and may be (through some miracle) holding a flight stick. Ed Wood's production would have looked like Steve Spielberg's by comparison. And of course there the hackney stock footage. We have a musical score that boils your blood at the same time it melts your heart. Yankee Doodle is drawn out into a 2 minute epic, describing the griping and stress-filled mood of hiding under the stairs in the sitting room. It's melody is wave-like, moving from eerie to patriotic to melancholy. It also moves to nausea. We also have yet another movie where Hitler is right handed. If I remember correctly, Herr Schicklgruber was of the left persuasion. We also cannot forget about characters such as Else, the German Duchess with a sometimes German, sometimes French accent from London, who doubles as a double agent. Have you noticed Germany looks a lot like California? Yeah, I've had enough already. How about you ?Ward Bond worked on 25+ movies with John Ford and who knows how many with John Wayne. He was always the lone-cowboy backing you up. Were the times really that tough or was it the damn old studio system again, with its contractual obligations that lead to his involvement in this production? Ward has committed his energy and effort into this role. It is sad that there is nothing there to keep you . Ward is by far the only reason to keep watching. It is to see his over the top performance as a leading man. This movie also seems a bit ironic when thinking what happened to Ward during the blacklisting in Hollywood and all his Communist comrades. This is a collection of celluloid film which adds up to a ridiculous premise, that is remarkably forward thinking considering the idiocracy of the 26th century to come. It has influenced numerous movies from the Dirty Dozen to Invasion U.S.A to Delta Force. Ward's Anti Nazi-Pro Child message at end, would go on to influence a certain man from Cuba. And inspire millions to "Say hello to his little friend..."

theowinthrop Reportedly, in April 1865, upon hearing the dreadful news from Washington, D.C., Benjamin Disraeli made the comment that "Assassination has never changed history!". A brave statement, but dubious. Lincoln's murder took a first rate political mind and spirit out of an office that needed him, and put in a misguided, ill prepared man with some sense of his office's importance. The result was that Lincoln's hope to restore the Union with a benign peace was wrecked by the inept President Andrew Johnson and the Radical Republican Congress which sought a harsher peace on the South. John Wilkes Booth had changed history indeed.Same happened in 44 B.C. when Julius Caesar was killed. Same happened in 1914 when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was killed and World War I broke out. Assassination does effect history.In 1942 two Czech patriots were parachuted into their homeland to carry out a mission. They did - they killed Reinhart Heydrich, the "Hangman" "Protector" of Bohemia, and creator of the Final Solution. Heydrich was in a car that was blown up, and it is pleasant to announced that the creep actually died from being skewered by eight heavy springs in the seat that he was seated in - it took him over a week to die. Given his involvement in the Holacaust and other atrocities, one can only say he died the way he deserved. Unfortunately, the Germans destroyed two villages, and killed hundreds of people in retaliation. Because of that the Allies did not carry out any other assassination plots in Europe against Nazis.But the notion of killing Nazi leaders was instilled in the air, and I think that is why this film was made soon after. To Americans Heydrich was vaguely known (after the destruction of Lidice and the other village interest in the "Hangman" led to two films being made: Fritz Lang's HANGMEN ALSO DIE and Douglas Sirk's HITLER'S MADMAN). HITLER, DEAD OR ALIVE is not a good film - it is really rather stupid. The idea of hiring three American criminals to kill Der Fuhrer is outlandish. But to be fair, this idea of criminals fighting the good fight against Nazis was fairly common in Hollywood films. Nazis never fought fairly, so we needed someone who also fought unfairly. Witness Humphrey Bogart and his co-horts in ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT (against Conrad Veidt) or Alan Ladd in THIS GUN FOR HIRE (admittedly against traitors working for Japan, not Germany) or LUCKY JORDAN. Still, if you want to kill the most vicious government leader in history, why use three gunman instead of working out a plan with the government. So if you have problems with this, you will have problems with the entire film.The only thing I liked about this movie was when Bobs Watson (as Hitler) makes a comment to a cohort that he eventually plans to doublecross Mussolini. Perhaps it might have happened sooner or later, but Der Fuhrer actually had a high regard for Il Duce, and later in the war sent his leading special agent, Otto Skorzeny, into Italy to rescue the imprisoned ex-head of the government. Still it was amusing to hear that. Otherwise, the film was a total wash-out.

sol ******SPOILERS******Off the wall war movie about a bunch of gangsters who become patriotic, well the million dollar reward helps too, and are dropped into Germany to get, as the movie title says, Hitler dead or alive. Hitler, a highly decorated WWI combat veteran, is made out to look like a coward or a fool as he begs for his life when captured or runs and hides from the slightest sound or danger when he's in charge! Watching all this now, in 2003, I can only imagine how people watching "Hitler Dead or Alive" back then, in 1942, would have wondered just how Hitler and his Nazis got as far as they did in the first place.Totally insane plot, even for a movie made during wartime, where there was stories going around that Hitler had doubles. With this in mind the boys from the mob had to make sure that they caught the real Hitler they brought along someone with them who knew Hitler,from back in the beer hall days of the 1920's. The Hitler expert, as well as former friend, recognized him by a scar that he had over his upper lip that resulted from a bottle thrown at him during a beer hall brawl! Believe it or not were told that's the reason he grew a mustache! Oh really! When Hitler is caught the gangster's in order to find out that he's the real McCoy, or Hitler, shave his famous mustache off and there's the scar! At that point Hitler knowing that the jig is up, as well as mustache off, cries out hysterically to his captors "Please spear my life and I'll give you half of my kingdom". This movie is even funnier then "The Producers" which is a comedy about Hitler and the Third Reich made for laughs years after Hitler and his regime was history, and no longer a threat to anyone. Unlike that film "Hitler Dead or Alive" that was made in all seriousness as a moral boaster for the "War Effort". Where the ending of the movie could well have lost the war for the allies if it was taken seriously just for the false and moronic information that it presented. Just before Hitler is shot by is own troops because they didn't recognize him without his mustache, I kid you not, the commander of the SS execution squad that was about to do Hitler in says disgustedly to him "how did Germany produce a piece of scum like you". A moment later at the same time thinking that Hitler got away from the gangsters he says triumphantly about his beloved Fuhrer, whom he's just about to have executed, in complete awe "The Man Is Pure Genius"! I had to take my heart medication pills to keep from getting a heart attack just from laughing! Oh yes the end of this ridiculous movie tells us that Hitler was actually killed in 1942 and the Hitler you see in the papers and newsreels is just a double. I guess that's how in the end the allies won the war according to this outrageous film: Hitler wasn't around to lead the Germans to their final victory! But you know what you'll never read this amazing "fact" in any history book or see it on the History Channel! Oh yeah do you wanna bet!