1h 59min | Drama, War | 24 April 1943
Director: Lewis Milestone
Stars: Errol Flynn, Ann Sheridan, Walter Huston
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034694/
Watched out of sequence because I just received the disc. Inspired to order it by the documentary Warner at War (2008) on the This is the Army ('43) disc.
A strong and effective look at being occupied by the Nazis and resisting.
Interesting contrast with modern film: in the final third (or later; I watched this on the portable which has no position display), something happens to AS. Here's how they portray it. When the property of the retired schoolmaster is being taken to the square to be burned, with him walking in tow, many villagers are walking with him. AS makes defiant eye contact with the soldier who is most vocal, ripping pages out of books and throwing them at the prisoner. The soldier stops what he's doing (but doesn't stop the others who followed his lead) and stares at her; she looks away.
A while later, AS is alone in a secluded place, and we see a shadow, maybe a hand, and pan down to her feet to see her being dragged away.
Later still, she arrives late at a meeting of the resistance leaders, and she's dirty (perhaps bruised), with ripped clothing. She is calm, stoic. When asked what happened to her, we cut away to a gathering of Nazi soldiers who are laughing loudly. Cut back to the resistance meeting, and we see EF particularly inflamed, and AS saying this happens to thousands of women all over the war, this is no time to alter their plans.
As the meeting continues, WH, the town doctor and father to AS, wanders away from the meeting, apparently the first he attended. He meanders down the street, passing several Nazi soldiers. Then one stops to light a cigarette, and WH stops to look at him. When the soldier passes, WH turns and savagely beats the man with his cane. This murder sets off the events of the rest of the story, which involves a lot of shooting with machine guns on both sides. After the priest, the first to attack the soldiers from the balcony of the church, mows down several Nazis with his own machine gun, and we reveal women shooting rifles from their home windows, the rest was just endless carnage which I'd prefer the censor had suppressed.
The fact that the nature of the attack on AS is never discussed is fascinating. That is the benefit of censorship: you must be clever about communicating what cannot be spoken or shown.
The fact that we're shown the long battle between soldiers and armed resistance is deliberate propaganda (and crowd pleasing?), to again inflame doubters about the war. In fact, the film closes with a Winston Churchill speech that war doubters need only look at Norway.
Definitely recommended to anyone interested in the topic or any of the actors.
Warner, dir. Milestone; 7
