Man Hunt [DVD]

British officer and renowned big game hunter Alan Thorndike (Walter Pidgeon)literally sets his rifle's sight on Hitler at Berchtesgarten but is foiled by security then tortured by the Gestapo to sign a confession. When he refuses they throw him off of a cliff but his fall is broken and he manages to escape back to England on a tramp steamer where Nazi agents (England and Germany were not at war at the moment)continue to pursue him. Enlisting the assistance of a cockney streetwalker (Joan Bennett) he eludes their grasp until cornered in a cave.This UK region 2 release comes with scene selections and a trailer and the video and audio transfer is clean and crisp.Its easy to see why Fritz Lang is often compared to Hitchcock.Both directors are master story tellers and both use visual techniques which are quite stunning for a film nearly seventy years old.I particularly enjoyed the recreation of foggy London at night,complete with narrow alleways and wet cobbled streets.The scene where a body is dragged along leaving scuffmarks in the carpet is equally brilliant.Lang is also a master of using light in ways other directors only dream of.A great example is the torture scene where all the viewer sees is a shadow of someone in a chair.It gives the scene a more sinister edge and proves you dont always have to graphically show violence to get your message across.The film is tightly directed and moves along at a good clip with Lang using all the tricks he knows.The actors all give credible performances in which the monocled George Sanders plays his Gestapo role of Quives Smith with aplomb,giving his character more depth by playing him bi-lingual is another fine example of Langs ability to avoid such stereotypes of Gestapo agents of this era.Keep your eye out for a young Roddy Mcdowell (who went on to make over 500 movies)as a cabin boy.The only annoying thing regarding the characters is that awful cockney accent of Joan Bennets character,its simply awful.Despite this handicap she pulls off her character quite convincingly and gives Walter Pidgeons character a run for his money in acting terms in one of his better performances.John Carradines gestapo agent is silently menacing and also well acted.It does get a little propagandist towards the end but it was made in 1941 where the outcome of the war was still unknown.So if you like 40's film noir then i am sure you will enjoy this so give it a go.

Fritz Lang's version of Geoffrey Household's novel Rogue Male is memorably good and for my money Walter Pidgeon's best role. Beautifully photographed, well acted and directed with pace and economy. Mostly studio bound, it doesn't seem like it is and London's streets have never seemed so sinister and menacing in the fog. The story goes along at a very fair clip, internationally famed big game hunter is caught with Hitler in the sights of his rifle and spends the rest of the film being pursued by Nazis led by sauvely sadistic George Sanders.

There are down sides to the movie; Joan Bennett's cockney accent is pretty awful, as was usually the case in those days, and speaking of cockneys when Pidgeon first arrives back in London he immediately encounters a roving band of pearly kings and queens - not the film's most realistic moment - and Pidgeon himself is gratingly paternalistic and condescending to Bennet, which again was not unnusual for the time. Nevertheless, the film remains engrossing as the great white hunter Pidgeon is stalked by his rival Sanders and his henchmen, including a young and rather handsome John Carradine.

The sound and picture on this print are both excellent, clear and crisp, and I didn't notice any faults in the picture at all. This Region 1 edition also has a good documentary on the making of the film. Despite being almost seventy years old both the film and the print have held up very well. Recommended.

I was about nine when I first saw this on TV, I was scared witless by the fight in the London Underground. Seeing it almost forty years later I suppose you do notice things like Constance Bennet's improbable accent, as a child I thought Pearly Kings and Queens were like Scotsmen in kilts - not THAT unusual - but these B&W films need to be appreciated for what they achieved in their time.
Anyway it starts off with Walter P having a bet with himself as to whether he can get Hitler in the sight of his high powered hunting rifle (he can but being a gent he doesn't shoot) and getting caught on the way back and brought before evil nazi George Sanders. I can't say anymore,being a film about a manhunt rather than a story with a mystery and denouement commenting on it in detail would spoil it. Brilliant end to the manhunt though. If you enjoyed Hitchcock's 39 Steps you'll love this, and, conversely, if you didn't then I wouldn't buy this.