Hangmen Also Die! is a 1943 war film directed by the Austrian director Fritz Lang and written by John Wexley, Bertolt Brecht and Lang. The film stars Hans Heinrich von Twardowski, Brian Donlevy, Walter Brennan and Anna Lee, and features Gene Lockhart and Dennis O'Keefe. The music is by Hanns Eisler and James Wong Howe served as cinematographer.
The film is loosely based on the 1942 assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi Reich Protector of German-occupied Prague, number-two man in the SS, and a chief architect of the Holocaust, who was known as "The Hangman of Prague." The real Heydrich was assassinated by Czech resistance fighters parachuted from a British plane in Operation Anthropoid, but in the movie, which was made during World War II before the full story had become public knowledge, Heydrich's killer is depicted as a member of the Czech resistance with ties to the Communist Party. The Nazis responded to Heydrich's assassination by rounding up and executing prominent Czech citizens, and destroying the people and the town of Lidice. In all, over 1,600 people were killed.[1]
Hangmen Also Die was Bertolt Brecht's only script for a Hollywood film: the money he earned from the project enabled him to write The Visions of Simone Machard, Schweik in the Second World War and an adaptation of Webster's The Duchess of Malfi. Hanns Eisler was nominated for an Academy Award for his musical score. The collaboration of three prominent refugees from Nazi Germany –Lang, Brecht and Eisler – is an example of the influence this generation of German exiles had in American culture.
Plot
During the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, surgeon Dr. Franticek Svoboda (Brian Donlevy), a Czech patriot, assassinates the brutal "Hangman of Europe", Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich (Hans Heinrich von Twardowski), and is wounded in the process. In his attempt to escape, he is helped by history professor Stephen Novotny (Walter Brennan), who is himself under suspicion by the Nazis, and his daughter Mascha (Anna Lee). As retaliation for the assassination, fifth-columnist Emil Czaka (Gene Lockhart), a brewer, helps to arrange for 400 citizens of Prague, including Professor Novotny, to be executed if the assassin is not named. Through a complex series of events, the resistance manages to frame Czaka himself for the murder, but not before the Nazis have executed many of the hostages.
Cast
- Cast notes
Production
A number of different working titles have been reported for Hangmen Also Die: "Never Surrender", "No Surrender", "Unconquered", "We Killed Hitler's Hangman" and "Trust the People". It has also been known as "Lest We Forget".[1][5] It has been reported that when a book with a similar title to "Never Surrender" or "No Surrender" was published while the film was in production, the producers held a contest for the cast and crew to suggest a new title. The contest was won by a production secretary who received the $100 prize.[6]
Teresa Wright, John Beal and Ray Middlelton were also considered at one point to appear in the film,[1] which went into production in late October 1942 and wrapped in mid-December of that year.[7]
Director Fritz Lang had considered beginning the film with Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem "The Murder of Lidice". He decided against it, but the poem does appear in MGM's film about Heydrich, Hitler's Madman (1943)[1]
Hangmen was Brecht's only screen credit for an American film, although he supposedly worked on other scripts during his time in Hollywood, without receiving credit. He left the United States shortly after testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee. John Wexley received sole credit for writing the screenplay after giving evidence to the Writers Guild that Brecht and Lang had only worked on the story.[1] Wexley himself was blacklisted after he was named a Communist in HUAC hearings.[8]
Hangmen Also Die premiered in New York City on the 23rd[9] or 24th[7] of March 1943, and was then premiered again in Prague, Oklahoma on 27 March, an event which featured Adolf Hitler being hanged in effigy.[1] The film was generally released in the U.S. on 15 April 1943.
Music
The music for Hangmen Also Die was composed by Hanns Eisler, Brecht's collaborator on a number of plays with music. Eisler only worked on a small number of American films, the most notable of which are Deadline at Dawn (1946) and None But the Lonely Heart (1944), for which he was also nominated for an Oscar.[10]
The song "No Surrender" in Hangmen was written by Eisler with lyrics by Sam Coslow.[11]
Awards
Hangmen Also Die was nominated for two Academy Awards, for Hanns Eisler for "Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture", and for Jack Whitney of Sound Services Inc. for "Best Sound, Recording".[12]
See also
Notes
External links
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