Main Cast: Walter Pidgeon, Joan Bennett, George Sanders, John Carradine, Roddy McDowall
Release Year: 1941
Country: US
Run Time: 105 minutes
Plot
A hunter finds himself in a world of danger when he decides to stalk Adolf Hitler in this taut WWII thriller. Capt. Thorndike (Walter Pidgeon) is an expert big-game hunter from England. While hunting in Bavaria, he happens upon Hitler's Berchtesgaden estate and spots the Fuhrer; he has his rifle in tow, and he toys with the idea of firing at the dictator, even raising the unloaded weapon, putting Hitler in the crosshairs, and pulling the trigger to make the gun click. Unfortunately, this draws the attention of Maj. Quive-Smith (George Sanders), a Gestapo leader assigned to guard the Führer, who promptly apprehends Thorndike, drags him off and attempts to force him to sign a confession. When he refuses, he's brutally beaten and dumped into a hole in the woods, and must climb out and make his way to safety, by hiding as a stowaway on a Danish steamer. The poor fellow then runs afoul of the menacing Mr. Jones (John Carradine), who steals his passport and identity. By the time Thorndike returns to London, the hunter has become the hunted, with Gestapo agents combing the streets looking for the would-be assassin. Thorndike finds an unlikely ally in Jerry (Joan Bennett), a seamstress and sometimes streetwalker who takes him in and helps him hide from the German forces closing in around him. And meanwhile, he must still contend with teh nefarious doings of Mr. Jones Man Hunt was directed by Fritz Lang, the great German director who fled to Paris in 1933 rather than accept a commission from Joseph Goebbels to make Nazi propaganda films. He came to America the following year. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
The first of Fritz Lang's anti-Nazi features begins with one of those "what if" moments that preoccupy history buffs and dovetails nicely with Lang's preoccupation with the vicissitudes of destiny. None other than Adolph Hitler himself is seen through the crosshairs of a rifle scope. The gunman, hiding among some trees, slowly pulls the trigger and the gun clicks. It was just a practice shot. He carefully loads a single bullet into the chamber, but just as he is about to fire, a leaf falls on his gun, causing him to miss and attracting the attention of a patrolling SS Guard, who promptly apprehends him. The would-be assassin turns out to be the dashing Captain Thorndike, played with consummate charm by Walter Pidgeon. After suffering torture at the hands of his Nazi captors, he finagles an escape aboard a boat bound for London. There he enlists the help of a streetsmart Cockney girl (Joan Bennett) to help him avoid his pursuers. From there, the film follows a relatively standard chase film arc -- albeit with at least one shockingly brutal plot twist -- from foggy nighttime London streets (brilliantly evoked by Arthur C. Miller's low-key lighting) to the remote English countryside. If nothing else, Man Hunt proves that, even when churning out wartime propaganda with a generic story line, Lang was still capable of making a work that is both darkly compelling and, given his own experiences with the Nazis, intensely personal. ~ Tom Vick, All Movie Guide
The opening scenes show British professional big game hunter, Captain Alan Thorndike (Walter Pidgeon) in the forests near the Berghof, Adolf Hitler's home in the Obersalzberg near Berchtesgaden. Getting Hitler in his telescopic sight, he pulls the trigger on an empty weapon and gives a wave. He ponders a moment then inserts a live round in the chamber, but is discovered at the last second by SS guards.
Beaten by the SS, Thorndike is taken to the commander of Hitler's security, (George Sanders). Sanders is also a professional hunter and aware of Thorndike's fame, particularly in Kenya. Thorndike explains that the purpose of the exercise was a "sporting stalk" not to kill, but just to see if assassinating Hitler could be done as the excitement is in the chase, not the kill. Knowing but despising the character of a sporting English gentleman, the sophisticated Sanders half believes him; but tries to get him to sign a confession saying that he was to assassinate Hitler on behalf of His Majesty's Government. Despite torture, Thorndike refuses and warns Sanders of "questions being asked in high places". The word "high places" gives Sanders the idea to throw Thorndike off a cliff to make his death look like an accident.
Thorndike survives the fall by landing in a tree, then mud where he escapes his German pursuers. He eventually reaches the sea where he rows to a ship sailing for England where he is hidden by cabin boyRoddy McDowall. When a Gestapo search of the ship doesn't locate Thorndike, the Germans place an agent (John Carradine) travelling to London on board with Thorndike's passport.
Carradine is met by German agents in London pursuing Thorndike, who escapes with the help of a young woman who may or may not be a Cockneyprostitute, Jerry Stokes (Joan Bennett). Stokes' costume of a trench coat and beret echoes that of Vivian Leigh in Waterloo Bridge. Jerry is also given a musical theme of A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square. Like the cabin boy, Jerry believes that Thorndike is really a gentleman on the run and gives him all of her money to take him to his brother, the diplomat Lord Risborough.
Jerry refuses a large cash reward that Thorndike offers her to amazed looks from Lady Risborough, who fears that Thorndike is paying her for other services rendered. Instead of money, Jerry wishes Thorndike to reward her with a new brooch or hatpin. She chooses a silver arrow and insists Thorndike present it to her. Thorndike is taken with the pin, saying "every good soldier has to have a crest" and compares the arrow to her saying both are "straight and shiny". Despite their differences in age and class, Jerry falls for Thorndike and he cautiously begins to return the affection.
Lord Risborogh tells Thorndike that he must stay hidden, as Germany is demanding his extradition and wishes to use the issue to embarrass H.M. Government and their peace keeping efforts. Thorndike plans to hide in the countryside then eventually escape to Africa.
Thorndike is relentlessly pursued by the Gestapo, including the recently arrived Sanders now going under the name of "Major Quive-Smith". When trying to find Thorndike's whereabouts, one of Thorndike's friends described Sanders as being "TOO English".
When chased into a London Underground station, Thorndike is pursued by Carradine with a sword cane. Thorndike kills Carradine by throwing him onto an electric rail; when his body is discovered it is mangled beyond recognition by a train but the media identify the body as Thorndike due to Carradine having his passport.
Parting on a foggy Waterloo Bridge, Thorndike gives Jerry written instructions to give to Lord Risborough detailing that he send a letter in three weeks time addressed to Jerry Stokes care of Lyme Regis Post Office. As in the novel, Thorndike is living in a cave in the countryside and had grown a beard. When he goes to pick up the letter he notices that the Postmistress is alarmed by his arrival. The letter is from Sanders.
Tracking Thorndike back to his cave, Sanders seals the only entrance and passes him the confession and a pen through an air hole, saying that if he doesn't sign he will leave and he will be sealed in the cave forever. Sanders then slides in Jerry's beret with arrow brooch saying that she didn't talk and they killed her by throwing her out a window; only discovering Thorndike's location through the written instructions meant for his brother. Whilst a grief-stricken Thorndike agrees to sign the confession, Sanders removes the obstacles to the entrance, but waits to shoot him as he crawls out. Thorndike uses Jerry's pin, his belt, a piece of wood and a stick to fabricate a longbow with Jerry's arrow pin on the tip, killing Sanders by shooting the arrow through the air hole in the cave.
With war declared, Thorndike joins the R.A.F. as a Bomber Command crewman, his aircraft having a silver arrow painted on the side. On a mission over Germany Thorndike parachutes into the Reich with his hunting rifle. The sound of the propellors fade to silence, then a stringed instrumental of God Save the Queen as the narrator intones to 1941 audiences that somewhere inside Germany is a professional and his precision rifle who won't stop until his job is finished...
Production
Man Hunt became the first war film to attract the attention of the then neutral America's Hays Office. Joseph Breen was alarmed by the script when he read it in 1941 calling it a "hate film".[1] Breen felt in the Isolationist atmosphere of 1941 America the film showed all Germans as evil unlike other films showing both good non-Nazi Germans as well as evil National Socialists. Breen insisted that the Germans could not be characterised as so brutal; the office would only pass the film if it would only "indicate" brutality rather than show it. Therefore cuts did not show Thorndike's torture but left it in the mind of the audience.[2]
Darryl F. Zanuck was also worried about Lang's anti-Nazi enthusiasm and banned him from the editing room. However Lang and his associate Gene Fowler, Jr. secretly edited the film without Zanuck's approval.[3]
