Beautifully shot by James Wong Howe and tightly scripted by Brecht and Lang in their only collaboration, this noir- like espionage thriller is set in occupied Czechoslovakia and revolves around the successful plot by the Czech resistance to assassinate Deputy Reich-Protector of Bohemia and Moravia "Hangman" Reinhard Heydrich and the hunt by the Gestapo to track down the killers.
“What an infinitely dismal fabrication this hostage film is that I have to occupy myself with these days. What a load of hackneyed situations, intrigues, false notes!” So lamented the screenwriter of the well-regarded World War II thriller Hangmen Also Die: Bertolt Brecht, the playwright of The Threepenny Opera and The Caucasian Chalk Circle and an émigré who escaped Nazi Germany to Hollywood. The script uses the 1942 assassination of Nazi official Reinhard Heydrich, the “Hangman of Prague,” as pretext. According to biographer Patrick McGilligan, director Fritz Lang hoped it would be dumbed down enough to sell tickets, yet filled with paranoia and skepticism about human behavior. Brecht wanted class dialectics and the ultimate triumph of the common man. He didn’t get his way — this would be “Bert” Brecht’s only credit in Tinseltown — but it seethes with menace and threat under Lang’s direction, with a cast featuring Brian Donlevy and Walter Brennan.
The movie concludes International Lens’ Lang salute 7:30 tonight at Vanderbilt's Sarratt Cinema, free and open to the public. There’s no word whether it’ll feature the same bonus as the film’s premiere in Prague, Okla. — the burning of Adolf Hitler in effigy.
