Diagonaldi Very well executed

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Catherina If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

funkyfry This film wastes no time getting started -- no speeches, no anthems, no introduction. We simply see a man (Walter Pidgeon) maneuvering between Nazis in some forested region. When he finally reaches the cliff, his destination, we see him expertly assemble a scope rifle and train its cross-hairs on Der Fuhrer himself. One can just about hear the 1941 audience shouting at the screen, "Pull the trigger! Pull the trigger!" Something goes wrong, of course, and our aristocratic hero spends the rest of the film on the run from nefarious Nazis led by George Sanders and John Carradine.Pidgeon is unusually animated in this film, and there are a lot of reaction shots of him which bear a similarity to Lang's work with Spencer Tracy (they hated each other) in his American masterpiece "Fury." Carradine and Sanders are suitably nasty, a lot of fun too watch (too much fun? perhaps that's a debate for another day). Joan Bennett shows up as a prostitute who falls for Pidgeon's man on the lam, exposing herself to fatal danger in order to help him and win his heart in return. Her accent is terrible but her performance is passable.Lang handles the suspense of the chase scenes around foggy London-town with great skill and style. The only real problem that I had with the film was in a lot of the dialog between Pidgeon and Bennett; Pidgeon always has a sort of paternal edge, but in this case it is more of a patronizing razor's edge. Hilariously, Bennett bursts into tears when Pidgeon chooses the couch over her bed, and Pidgeon holds her head and calls her a "poor, dear little child", or words greatly to that effect. There are a lot of those scenes. Certainly we're missing the vital and overtly sexual Bennett of later collaborations such as the infamous "Scarlet Street." In the Lang world, Bennett must either play a saintly whore or a predatory whore, and no room in between for argument or confusion.The climax becomes a little bit weird, but the film deserves props for actually allowing the Bennett character to die. The fact that her death, as well as the torture scenes involving Pidgeon earlier in the film, are shown strictly off-screen, may represent a compromise between producer Zanuck and Joe Breen's office, which was extremely cautious about anti-Nazi propaganda prior to the official U.S. entry into WWII. This is a significant film in the development of U.S. propaganda -- recent refugee Lang wants to pull no punches, but in retrospect (or compared to his later "Hangmen Also Die") the film's treatment of Nazi villains is almost light-handed, Hollywood villain-ish.Note, by the way, how Lang manages to get Sanders' monocle and the glasses of several other German spies to gleam menacingly in the scarce lighting -- Spielberg would later use this effect in his nostalgically anti-Nazi films. Considering how much attention Lang paid to his own monocle, it's hardly an accident or a casual effect.I was interested in the scene where Bennett and Pidgeon go into a jeweler's shop to buy her a hat-pin (the fatal hat-pin, as it turns out). After entering, the distinctly Jewish-looking shopkeeper speaks to them with a heavy German accent, and Pidgeon and Bennett's characters are visibly disturbed for a moment, then continue on with the purchase. This man may have been a refugee from the Nazis, but his accent makes him momentarily suspect. I believe Lang probably included this brief bit of business as a way of expressing his own frustration with the racism that was inevitably being directed towards German émigrés during the propaganda-heavy times leading up to the conflict.

Martin Teller A noted big game hunter takes aim at Hitler and becomes the hunted. One of Lang's better American productions, a mighty fun thriller that gave him the opportunity to show where his sympathies lay. It does sag a little bit at times, but builds to an amazing climax. Lang's photographic style is evident, with gloomy cinematography that helps set the stage for noir. It's a treat to see Walter Pidgeon and George Sanders square off... two of the best voices in movies. And Joan Bennett (who always does terrific work with Lang) is great too, pulling off a reasonably convincing cockney accent, although her character throws herself at Pidgeon a bit too easily. The film provides a lot of thrills, traps and tension, and topical subject matter as well. A real treat, a movie that manages to be fun and yet isn't afraid to explore dark themes.

oOgiandujaOo_and_Eddy_Merckx For me the central point of what is a multifaceted movie is one of ethics. Captain Thorndike is a big game hunter of repute who never shoots his prey, he gets it in his sights and then recognises that he's "won the game". He's essentially an anarchist in that he talks at several points about being against all forms of force (politically speaking some types of anarchists generally talk in terms of the path of least coercion). He is faced with a decision, which fortunately, few of us in the country where most of this film is shot (the UK), have to make any more. When one is faced with extreme murderous brutality (the Nazis), extinguishing personal freedoms, should one fight back with lethal force? People have called this aspect of the movie propagandist, a manipulative attempt to get the USA to join the war, but I think Fritz Lang poses this question in earnest and with his heart on his sleeve. Despite our distance from questions of such magnitude (the war against operations such as Al Qaeda has effectively been assigned to bureaus or outsourced, and do not ask these questions of us on an individual basis), it's a question which I found very involving.Fritz Lang's movie has in common with Powell & Pressburger's film from the same year, the 49th Parallel, that both treatments of the Nazis display a great deal of respect, leaving you to question on some level whether they don't deserve to win. Thorndike is both a rank below, and Lang suggests, an inferior hunter to, his nemesis the Nazi Major Quive-Smith. Only by breaking through British class barriers and finding love will Thorndike be able to triumph. Reference is made to the policy of appeasement and to appallingly stupid British officialdom, more evidence of a movie which is far from a stupid and absurdly partisan propaganda piece.Some of the movie comes off as a little odd, such as a repeated reference to the Nazis returning to decapitation as method of execution, which seems rather a minutia given that the UK and US were both hugely fond of capital punishment at the time. The love story creaks a bit and makes the middle of the movie somewhat of a longueur. Contrivances in the plot are acceptable, but may cross a threshold for some.On an aesthetic and visceral level there are some great tracking shots, and the Nazis have been appropriately fetishised. Popular modern belief that behind each swastika there was a caring sharing yet misguided person is hugely erroneous, death-worshipping pagans, members of what was a hugely ideological cult, being more accurate in my view. The shot of Quive-Smith and goons in Jerry's apartment is high-calibre work reminiscent of the expressionist silent work of the director's earlier years. Personally I found the fist fight hugely brutal and exhilarating, which is very rare in a movie of that period, or indeed any other. In terms of a "...from hell's heart I stab at thee" level of gusto, the ending of the movie is as electrifying as the famous ending to 13 Rue Madeleine.By the by Quive-Smith is an enormously interesting character. There's huge testament to Lang's subtlety in the Kehlsteinhaus (Eagle's Nest) scene. An outwardly confident character with no hint of turmoil stands next to a lampshade where votive music in Old German is written, "...nur deine güt hilft, mir aus den nöthen." ("... only you can help me out of my suffering"). In the next scene he is backgrounded by a sculpture of Saint Sebastian pierced through with arrows. This a wounded man, in need of putting out of his misery. Lang's suggestion regarding Nazis generally? Obviously a man of genius who snuck a lot of stuff about fate in under the radar.

Michael_Elliott Man Hunt (1941) *** (out of 4) Entertaining but severely flawed thriller about big-game hunter Alan Thorndike (Walter Pidgeon) who crosses over to Germany and hunts down Hitler. He has the evil man in his rifle range but when he pulls the trigger it's a blank. He's eventually captured and beaten but he swears that he had no intent on actually killing the man. He manages to escape but Major Quive Smith (George Sanders) is soon on his trail as is a hired killer (John Carradine). It's important to remember that at the time of this film's release American had yet to join WW2 so there's a lot of talk here, which is clearly meant to build up spirits for when our country did join. The ending is certainly preaching but this isn't the downside of the film. The real downside happens when Thorndike meets a young woman (Joan Bennett) who insists on following him on his journey. Up until this point the film has some nice tension building up and after her character is out of the way we get back to that tension but I must say that this added romance was downright bad and really kept this film from being much better. The biggest problem I had is that I could never make heads or tails of why it was included in the first place. There's really no "love" story being told and there's really no point in having her along for the ride as it appears the main reason she's here is for comedy relief and there aren't any laughs. Her character is so annoying that you can't help but wish she'd just go away and why she was given such a big part in the story is beyond me. Outside of that we're left with a pretty good thriller with some excellent performances and tight direction. Pidgeon is perfect as the hero who refuses to sell out his country to save his own life. I thought the character went through quite a few changes in the film and the actor perfectly handled the material. Sanders easily steals the film as the evil SOB tracking him down and you can't help but feel as if you're hearing someone who really was behind the evil wishes of Hitler. Sanders is so cold and stern in the part that you can't help but love to hate him. Carradine offers up his typical fine performance and we get Roddy McDowall, Frederick Worlock and Roger Imhof in nice supporting bits. Bennett didn't work for me but this had more to do with the screenplay and not her performance. The final moments take place inside a cave and makes for some wonderful tension but I won't ruin what happens. MAN HUNT is certainly worth watching due to the cast and Lang's direction but I can't help but feel a little disappointed that it's not better. Had the film stayed focused on the tension and left the romance somewhere else then we'd have had a much better film.