Hitler- Dead or Alive (1942)

Good movie but grossly overrated

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

I thought Hitler--Dead or Alive was a serious men-on-a-mission war film before I started watching it, but before long it slowly dawns on the viewer that this is an out-and-out comedy in which a group of inept buffoons are parachuted into Nazi Germany in order to kill old Adolf himself. Chief interest arises from the casting of familiar character actor Ward Bond in the title role for the first and only time of his lengthy career.This film attempts to be a madcap comedy but it's anything but. Shots of the concentration camps and the like kill the comic mood stone dead. Bond tries his best but he's mired in a muddle of middling material. I suppose some scenes, like when the Americans jaunt down the road in Germany and encounter the locals, are funny in an outrageous way, but overall the effect is to cringe rather than laugh. The ending, in which Hitler gets his moustache shaved off, has to be seen to be believed.

Aesthetically speaking, this is not a good film in the least. The plot is stupid, the dialog is beyond just stupid and the film can only be enjoyed as a silly piece of kitsch. However, I liked it because it represents the extreme in how bad an American propaganda film can be. Like "First Yank in Tokyo", any attempt to make a believable story went out the window with this one! The film stars some actors who are usually there for support--Ward Bond, Paul Fix and Warren Hymer. While I liked them as colorful characters in films, without a strong and more competent leading man, the film is a bit doomed at the onset. The three play gangsters who lead a Three Stooges-like covert mission to kill Hitler. And, as for Hitler and his henchmen, they are about as smart as you'd expect from a Stooges' film! It's all very dopey and silly but I could also see someone today watching it precisely because it's so bad--so over the top.This film has nothing going for it other than goofiness. It is so weird and wacky that it makes for a wonderfully strange evening of movie watching--and it's easy to, as the film is in the public domain and can be downloaded for free.

I saw this movie when it first came out. My age group cohort, the males anyway, still remember this movie fondly. Every kid saw it. Of course it's ridiculous, in the same way the Three Stooges are ridiculous. We wouldn't criticize our three stooge friends for not being realistic.At the time this movie came out, Americans didn't know about concentration camps and the Holocaust. Thus, the silliness of this film can be expected to fall flat for adults who watch it now. However, laughing at Hitler gang movies was quite common in 42, 43, 44. It was a common recreation.I will also add that this was Ward Bond's only starring role in his long movie career.

Reportedly, in April 1865, upon hearing the dreadful news from Washington, D.C., Benjamin Disraeli made the comment that "Assassination has never changed history!". A brave statement, but dubious. Lincoln's murder took a first rate political mind and spirit out of an office that needed him, and put in a misguided, ill prepared man with some sense of his office's importance. The result was that Lincoln's hope to restore the Union with a benign peace was wrecked by the inept President Andrew Johnson and the Radical Republican Congress which sought a harsher peace on the South. John Wilkes Booth had changed history indeed.Same happened in 44 B.C. when Julius Caesar was killed. Same happened in 1914 when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was killed and World War I broke out. Assassination does effect history.In 1942 two Czech patriots were parachuted into their homeland to carry out a mission. They did - they killed Reinhart Heydrich, the "Hangman" "Protector" of Bohemia, and creator of the Final Solution. Heydrich was in a car that was blown up, and it is pleasant to announced that the creep actually died from being skewered by eight heavy springs in the seat that he was seated in - it took him over a week to die. Given his involvement in the Holacaust and other atrocities, one can only say he died the way he deserved. Unfortunately, the Germans destroyed two villages, and killed hundreds of people in retaliation. Because of that the Allies did not carry out any other assassination plots in Europe against Nazis.But the notion of killing Nazi leaders was instilled in the air, and I think that is why this film was made soon after. To Americans Heydrich was vaguely known (after the destruction of Lidice and the other village interest in the "Hangman" led to two films being made: Fritz Lang's HANGMEN ALSO DIE and Douglas Sirk's HITLER'S MADMAN). HITLER, DEAD OR ALIVE is not a good film - it is really rather stupid. The idea of hiring three American criminals to kill Der Fuhrer is outlandish. But to be fair, this idea of criminals fighting the good fight against Nazis was fairly common in Hollywood films. Nazis never fought fairly, so we needed someone who also fought unfairly. Witness Humphrey Bogart and his co-horts in ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT (against Conrad Veidt) or Alan Ladd in THIS GUN FOR HIRE (admittedly against traitors working for Japan, not Germany) or LUCKY JORDAN. Still, if you want to kill the most vicious government leader in history, why use three gunman instead of working out a plan with the government. So if you have problems with this, you will have problems with the entire film.The only thing I liked about this movie was when Bobs Watson (as Hitler) makes a comment to a cohort that he eventually plans to doublecross Mussolini. Perhaps it might have happened sooner or later, but Der Fuhrer actually had a high regard for Il Duce, and later in the war sent his leading special agent, Otto Skorzeny, into Italy to rescue the imprisoned ex-head of the government. Still it was amusing to hear that. Otherwise, the film was a total wash-out.