Well ladies and gentlemen I've finally come back from a long and needed vacation, not just saying it was a well needed day off all the madness around the world, but it was most needed. Though as luck would have it, I've finally took some time in finding some contenders for my August Recommendation, it went down with a horror film about being all by yourself and a World War II film noir, set in Czechoslovakia. Though it was my mom and Dad that got me into this great film noir set in World War II Czech. My Mom through her parents’ history came from a Czech background, with a lot of memories growing up through the years including WWII. So, like every movie guy would do I decided to finally take the time and watch this surprisingly great movie, directed by Fritz Lang, who I need to investigate tells the story of a real-life assassination on a Nazi officer who was an architect on the Holocaust, for which goes to great lengths of one Nazi death but trying to save countless lives of Czech citizens in retaliation.
During the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, insurgent Franticek Svoboda (Brian Donlevy) assassinates the brutal German leader Reinhard Heydrich (Hans Heinrich von Twardowski). Svoboda escapes with the aid of a History Professor Stephan Novotny (Walter Brennan), but Novotny is then captured, along with 400 other Czechs, through the machinations of Nazi sympathizer Emil Czaka (Gene Lockhart). The Czech prisoners are then told that if Svoboda does not surrender, they will be executed.
One of the many films that blends perfectly with both World War II genre of film and the darkest worlds of film noir. What makes this film amazing and cleverly drawn, is that there's no good guy in this whole movie though granted the Czech Resistance is the good guy but there using extreme measures in terms of keeping their resistance a secret, moreover Hangmen also Die is more of a survivalist story of fighting a Nazi Regime while hiding in the shadows. To give a little brief history of the film, the movie is loosely based on the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich who was a number two man in the SS, moreover, was the chief mastermind behind the Holocaust though in real life he was assassinated Czech Resistance fighters who parachuted from a British plane in Operation Anthropoid. What also gives this film credit is that it was made during the wake of Heydrich's death during World War II, moreover, is a hand full of movies that show Hollywood not being afraid during that era to tell stories that happened in WW II. Fritz Lang director of the film was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary around 1890, and lived majority of his life in the waking horrors of what Germany did during most of his life. When he arrived in Hollywood, Lang had been involved in the creation of the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League, for which he made four Anti-Nazi themed films including Hangmen also Die! And with this film Lang does such a great job establishing the world of Occupied Czechoslovakia where there is no reasoning with the Nazi's and even if you go to them, they will make your lives worse than they can possibly make it, during that time. Furthermore, Lang does a good job in not holding back any of the punches when it comes to the Nazi's brutalities in the film moreover does a great job with the third act in a way, I don't want to spoil it for anyone, though all I can say now I'm glad to of watch on of the first of many Fritz Lang's work and now in the hunt for finding more films he's made. I don't want to spoil anymore details about this great film, but it's an amazing gripping tale about having to make huge sacrifices in order to fight a regime that almost seemed unbeatable, and I would highly recommend watching this great film to anyone who’s big in both film noir and World War II films.
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