The Hitler Gang (1944)

Memorable, crazy movie

Great Film overall

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I love this film - the ganster style is hilarious - it is brilliant - not filmnoir - but has genius moments of camera work and wayyy over the top sinister acting - well worth watching...

This film purports to dramatize Hitler's rise to power from the end of WWI to his bringing the world into WWII. While most of the facts are true, because this is a propaganda film it occasionally stretches the truth or gives a few outright lies--though not that many. So, when you watch it, don't expect all of it is gospel truth but a well made film intended to make Hitler look as awful as possible--which isn't really that difficult! I know quite a bit about Hitler, as a history teacher and because I took classes on him and read about him extensively while in college. A very disturbed but fascinating guy, that's for sure! And the film does a decent job in portraying him.Bobby Watson plays Hitler--as he'd done in other films of the time. He bore a very close resemblance to Hitler. While this is not really a good thing, it kept him busy during WWII making such propaganda comedy films as "Nazty Nuisance" and "The Devil With Hitler". Here, however, he plays the Nazi leader in a non-comedic role. In total, Watson played Hitler in 9 films! In addition, the actors they chose to play such notable Nazis as Hess and Röhm looked remarkably similar to their real life counterparts--showing the studio actually took some time with this film to get the look right. So, despite a relatively low budget, the studio took this project very seriously.For the most part, the film does follow the career of Hitler. The most sensational part of the movie, his relationship with his niece, Geli, was actually probably even sicker than the film portrays. I don't think audiences of the day wanted a THOROUGH examination of his life with her--some of the allegations are too nasty to list on IMDb (they probably would not allow it). The film implied that Hitler killed her, but it's more likely his very bizarre sexual demands and obsessive demand for her attentions led to her suicide.The biggest inaccuracy in the film was the constant portrayal of Hitler as an abject coward or a man easily manipulated by his staff. Now I am NOT an apologist for him--he was evil personified. But, unfortunately, he was not a coward. For example, despite the film showing him with hysterical blindness during WWI (a story that is inconsistent with him as a soldier), Hitler LOVED WWI and loved danger--often volunteering for insanely difficult missions. He really was gassed during the war, got blown up another time and received two Iron Crosses--something practically unheard of for someone who was not an officer. In war, he was in his element and thrived. Frankly, this true picture is a worse image--a war-loving monster instead of the abject coward and blow-hard they showed him to be in the movie. And, a man who was all too aware of the evils his henchmen did! Overall, a very good bio of Hitler. Well constructed and acted--and fascinating throughout.

Perhaps the first biopic ever made about Adolf Hitler (not considering the satirical Great Dictator), this was filmed in 1944, when the Fuhrer was still alive though with defeat already in sight. This unfortunately forgotten movie deals mostly with his rise to power, it starts with Hitler in a military hospital learning about the defeat of Germany in World War I and it ends on the eve of World War II.This film doesn't portray Hitler as crazy or as a raving lunatic and he is shown as being less downright evil than a cynical, manipulative and ruthless politician. For instance, the persecution of the Jews is shown to be not a product of his fanaticism but as a political calculation to search a scapegoat for Germany's defeat in the WWI. The movie consciously tries to mirror the gangster movie popular in its era (thus the title), instead of conspiring to rub off other gangsters, here Hitler conspire to do away with rival politicians, instead of fighting over the liquor market, here they fight over controlling Germany.The movie didn't have all the information that came out after the war ended (Eva Braun doesn't appear, but his niece Geli Raubal, whom the movie accuses Hitler of murdering, does; nothing is said about the concentration camps) but it is nevertheless very well informed given the circumstances, especially about the beginnings of Nazism, showing for instance how Hitler join the National Socialist Party as an army spy, in order to infiltrate it.Made with a tiny budget, and with no name actors, it is finally made interesting by its intelligent, literate script, sober directing and some of the acting. Bobby Watson is very good as Hitler, the supporting cast is a bit less (the actors playing Hess, Goebbels and Rohm look quite like the characters they are portraying, the actor playing Himmler very little, the one playing Goering, nothing at all). Recommended, especially if you are interested in the subject.

One thing you'll notice in this movie straight away - the actors all look uncannily like their real-life counterparts. However, even with look-alike actors, a movie can fall down in terms of script and acting, but not this one. Considering this movie was made in the 1940s, and in the middle of WW2 no less, the acting and direction are great, the story is not overly propagandized, and we get possibly the best portrayal of Hitler on screen until this year's 'Downfall' (Der Untergang).Another of those movies which deserve to be classics, but which are rotting in a film vault somewhere. It is a crime that this isn't available anywhere on DVD.