FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Fritz Lang - Hangmen Also Die  

Bertolt Brecht was drawn to Hollywood only once, and that was for this collaboration with his friend Fritz Lang, who turned Brecht's short story into an anti-Nazi film noir. Hangmen Also Die is vaguely based on a true incident and retells the story of the executioner Heydrich, who was homosexual. Most importantly, the film captures the mood of the Czech people under the Nazi reign of terror. If you read a little more about it, you will learn that the former friends had a falling out over whether Fritz Lang had left out some of Brecht's ideas, for example. The Germans in Hangmen Also Die are ruthless, hateful ideologues. In contrast, there is the defiant spirit of the Prague resistance, captured in neat sets and picturesque black-and-white photography. It all begins with the murder of the bestial Reinhard Heydrich. In broad daylight in Prague by resistance fighter Dr Svoboda (Brian Donlevy). But before he can escape, his driver (Lionel Stander) is arrested by the Gestapo. Prague is sealed off; there is no place left for Svoboda to hide. A curfew is imposed and an intensive manhunt begins. Svoboda, however, manages to hide in the flat of a stranger, Nasha Novotny (Anna Lee), who does not betray him to the Gestapo. She hides him, even though this threatens her with execution. The Nazis threaten to cause a bloodbath in Prague if the fugitive is not caught. The Gestapo seem to enjoy intimidating people and Prague is full of traitors like beer brewer Emil Czaka (Gene Lockhart). So the resistance hatches an elaborate plan to convict Czaka as a murderer.... Hangmen Also Die works as a taut Hollywood thriller with typical Fritz Lang images, which in turn are influenced by German expressionist silent film. Above all, the film noir offers an intelligent commentary on the bloodthirsty fascists, so that the scenario only seems all the more like a horrific nightmare. And hadn't the Expressionists been denied precisely this political depth?