Plot
On July 29, 1939, renowned British big-game hunter Captain Alan Thorndike slips through the forest undetected near the Berghof, Adolf Hitler's residence near Berchtesgaden. With Hitler in his telescopic sight, he pulls the trigger on his unloaded rifle and gives a wave. He ponders a moment, then loads a live round, but is discovered at the last second by a guard, and the rifle goes off in their struggle.
After being beaten, Thorndike is taken to Major Quive-Smith, who is also a devoted hunter and an admirer. Thorndike explains that he was not trying to kill, but did it just as a "sporting stalk", purely for the thrill of going after the biggest game of all. The major is unsure whether to believe him and insists that he sign a confession that he was working as an assassin for the British government. When Thorndike refuses, he is tortured, but remains steadfast and warns of "questions being asked in high places" if he is killed, as his brother Lord Risborough is a very important diplomat. Quive-Smith arranges to have Thorndike pushed off a cliff to make his death look like suicide.
Thorndike survives when his knapsack gets caught in a tree, breaking his fall. He eludes his pursuers and reaches a port. He steals a rowing boat, but is forced to abandon it when a patrol boat comes near. He swims to a nearby ship. British cabin boy Vaner helps Thorndike hide aboard. The Germans find Thorndike's coat and passport aboard the rowboat and search the nearby Danish-registered vessel. Though they find nothing, they place an agent on board the London-bound freighter using Thorndike's passport to impersonate him, who continues searching after the ship departs.
The agent is met by German confederates in London. Thorndike, mistakenly believing he is safe, casually disembarks and is spotted. He manages to hide in the apartment of a young woman named Jerry Stokes who lends him money so that he can reach his brother.
When Lord Risborough tells his brother that the British government, continuing its pre-war policy of appeasement, would have to extradite him if he were found, Thorndike decides to hide in Africa. Jerry tries to refuse a large reward, leading Lady Risborough to assume that it is payment for other services, but Thorndike insists it isn't, and that she take it. He also buys her a new hatpin, as she had lost hers when they first met. She chooses a cheap chromium arrow and insists that Thorndike present it to her. Thorndike likens it to her, saying both are "straight and shiny". By this point, Jerry is in love.
Quive-Smith arrives in London to join the hunt. When Thorndike calls on his solicitor, Farnsworthy, the Nazis are once again on his trail. Chased into a London Underground station, Thorndike struggles with the agent, who is killed when he is thrown onto an electrified rail. The dead man, mutilated beyond recognition by subsequent tube traffic, is identified by his papers as Thorndike; the real Thorndike is then subjected to a manhunt by the British police as his murderer.
Thorndike tells Jerry to have Lord Risborough send him a letter in three weeks to the care of the Lyme Regis post office, then flees London for more secure cover. Thorndike hides in a cave, but alarms the local postmistress when he tries to pick up the letter. He grabs it and retreats to his cave, where he finds it is from Quive-Smith, who has followed him to his lair.
Quive-Smith seals the only entrance and passes Thorndike the confession and a pen through an airhole, threatening to leave him trapped inside. Quive-Smith slides in Jerry's beret, informing Thorndike that she was thrown out a window to her death when she would not betray him. The Germans found him by using the address that Thorndike had written for her. Badgered by Quive-Smith, Thorndike finally admits that he subconsciously intended to assassinate Hitler. He then agrees to sign the confession. Quive-Smith unblocks the entrance, but waits to shoot Thorndike as he crawls out. However, Thorndike uses his belt and a slat from his bed to fabricate a bow, then a stick and the pin from Jerry's hat as a makeshift arrow, and shoots Quive-Smith through the airhole. When Thorndike emerges, Quive-Smith wounds him before dying. By the time Thorndike recovers, the war is well underway.
Thorndike joins the Royal Air Force as a Bomber Command crewman. On a mission over Germany, he parachutes out with his hunting rifle.
Production
Man Hunt became the first war film to attract the attention of the Hays Office in the neutral United States. Joseph Breen was alarmed by the script, calling it a "hate film". [5] Breen felt that in the isolationist atmosphere of the 1941 U.S., the film showed all Germans as evil, unlike other films that depicted both good non-Nazi Germans as well as evil Nazis. Breen insisted that the Germans should not be characterised as being so brutal and that the office would pass the film only if it would "indicate" brutality rather than show it. As a result, Thorndike's torture was not shown, but the idea was made apparent to the audience. [5]
Darryl F. Zanuck was also worried about Lang's anti-Nazi enthusiasm and banned him from the editing room. However, Lang and his associate Gene Fowler, Jr. secretly edited the film without Zanuck's approval. [6]
Isolationists and Nazi sympathizers took issue with the film, along with That Hamilton Woman (1941) and others, describing such films as pro-British propaganda to change American public opinion about going to war. [7]
The film features an instrumental version of "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" by Eric Maschwitz, Manning Sherwin and Jack Strachey as a recurring romantic theme. The score's recurring theme for the Nazis was composed by the film's musical director Alfred Newman.
Friedrich Christian Anton Lang, better known as Fritz Lang, was an Austrian film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in Germany and later the United States. One of the best-known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute. He has been cited as one of the most influential filmmakers of all time.
Ulrich Friedrich-Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop was a German politician and diplomat who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945.
Martin Ludwig Bormann was a German Nazi Party official and head of the Nazi Party Chancellery, private secretary to Adolf Hitler and a war criminal. After the war, he was convicted and sentenced to death-in-absentia for crimes against humanity. Bormann gained immense power by using his position as Hitler's private secretary to control the flow of information and access to Hitler. He used his position to create an extensive bureaucracy and involve himself as much as possible in the decision making.
The Night of the Long Knives, or the Röhm purge or Röhm Coup, also called Operation Hummingbird, was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from 30 June to 2 July 1934. Chancellor Adolf Hitler, urged on by Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler, ordered a series of political extrajudicial executions intended to consolidate his power and alleviate the concerns of the German military about the role of Ernst Röhm and the Sturmabteilung (SA), the Nazis' paramilitary organization, known colloquially as "Brownshirts". Nazi propaganda presented the murders as a preventive measure against an alleged imminent coup by the SA under Röhm – the so-called Röhm Putsch.
Wilhelm Franz Canaris was a German admiral and the chief of the Abwehr from 1935 to 1944. Canaris was initially a supporter of Adolf Hitler, and the Nazi regime. Following the German invasion of Poland in 1939, however, Canaris turned against Hitler and committed acts of both passive and active resistance during the war.
Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen, Erbsälzer zu Werl und Neuwerk was a German conservative politician, diplomat, Prussian nobleman and General Staff officer. He served as the chancellor of Germany in 1932, and then as the vice-chancellor under Adolf Hitler from 1933 to 1934.
The Berghof was Adolf Hitler's holiday home in the Obersalzberg of the Bavarian Alps near Berchtesgaden, Bavaria, Germany. Other than the Wolfsschanze, his headquarters in East Prussia for the invasion of the Soviet Union, he spent more time here than anywhere else during his time as the Führer of Nazi Germany. It was also one of the most widely known of his headquarters, which were located throughout Europe.
Artur Axmann was the German Nazi national leader (Reichsjugendführer) of the Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend) from 1940 to 1945, when the war ended. He was the last living Nazi with a rank equivalent to Reichsleiter.
Carl Friedrich Goerdeler was a German conservative politician, monarchist, executive, economist, civil servant and opponent of the Nazi regime. He opposed some anti-Jewish policies while he held office and was opposed to the Holocaust.
Werner Eduard Fritz von Blomberg was a German General Staff officer and the first Minister of War in Adolf Hitler's government. After serving on the Western Front in World War I, Blomberg was appointed chief of the Truppenamt during the Weimar Republic. Following the Nazis' rise to power, he was named Minister of War and Commander-in-Chief of the German Armed Forces. In this capacity, Blomberg played a central role in Germany's military build-up during the years leading to World War II. However, by 20 January 1938, he was forced to resign after his rivals, Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler, presented Hitler with evidence that his wife had posed in the past for pornographic photos.
Adolf Hitler, dictator of Germany from 1933 to 1945, has been represented in popular culture ever since he became a well-known politician in Germany. His distinctive image was often parodied by his opponents. Parodies became much more prominent outside Germany during his period in power. Since the end of World War II representations of Hitler, both serious and satirical, have continued to be prominent in popular culture, sometimes generating significant controversy. In many periodicals, books, and movies, Hitler and Nazism fulfill the role of archetypal evil. This treatment is not confined to fiction but is widespread amongst nonfiction writers who have discussed him in this vein. Hitler has retained a fascination from other perspectives; among many comparable examples is an exhibition at the German Historical Museum which was widely attended.
Major Francis Edward Foley CMG was a British Secret Intelligence Service officer. As a passport control officer for the British Embassy in Berlin, Foley "bent the rules" and helped thousands of Jewish families escape from Nazi Germany after Kristallnacht and before the outbreak of the Second World War. He is officially recognised as a British Hero of the Holocaust and as a Righteous Among the Nations.
"Pimpernel" Smith is a 1941 British anti-Nazi thriller, produced and directed by its star Leslie Howard, which updates his role in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934) from Revolutionary France to pre-Second World War Europe. The British Film Yearbook for 1945 described his work as "one of the most valuable facets of British propaganda".
Ministry of Fear is a 1944 American spy thriller film directed by Fritz Lang, and starring Ray Milland and Marjorie Reynolds. Based on the 1943 novel by Graham Greene, the film tells the story of a man just released from a mental asylum who finds himself caught up in an international spy ring and pursued by Nazi agents after inadvertently receiving something they want. The original music for the film was composed by Victor Young.
Confessions of a Nazi Spy is a 1939 American spy political thriller film directed by Anatole Litvak for Warner Bros. It was the first explicitly anti-Nazi film to be produced by a major Hollywood studio, being released in May 1939, four months before the beginning of World War II and two and a half years before the United States' entry into the war.
Rogue Male is a 1976 British television film starring Peter O'Toole, based on Geoffrey Household's 1939 novel Rogue Male. Made by the BBC, it was adapted by Frederic Raphael, directed by Clive Donner and also stars Alastair Sim, John Standing and Harold Pinter. It was first broadcast on 22 September 1976.
Rogue Male, by Geoffrey Household, is a classic thriller novel, published in 1939. The book was reissued in 2007 with an introduction by Victoria Nelson.
Martin Kosleck was a German film actor. Like many other German actors, he fled when the Nazis came to power. Inspired by his deep hatred of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, Kosleck made a career in Hollywood playing villainous Nazis in films. While in the United States, he appeared in more than 80 films and television shows in a 46-year span. His icy demeanor and piercing stare on screen made him a popular choice to play Nazi villains. He portrayed Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler's propaganda minister, five times, and also appeared as an SS trooper and a concentration camp officer.
Rudolf Walter Richard Hess was a German politician and a leading member of the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Appointed Deputy Führer to Adolf Hitler in 1933, Hess held that position until 1941, when he flew solo to Scotland in an attempt to negotiate the United Kingdom's exit from the Second World War. He was taken prisoner and eventually convicted of crimes against peace. He was still serving his life sentence at the time of his suicide in 1987.
Lionel Royce was an Austrian-American actor of stage and screen, also known during his European career as Leo Reuss. He began his career in theater in Vienna, Austria, in 1919, before moving to Berlin in 1925. Being Jewish, his work began to be restricted in the 1930s in Nazi Germany. Fleeing the Nazis he returned to Austria in 1936, where to hide his heritage, he created the persona of Kaspar Brandhofer, a Tyrolian peasant, and became a sensation as a natural actor on the stage in Vienna. When he admitted his ruse, he became blacklisted in Austria, after which he emigrated to the United States in 1937. He had an active film career in the United States, appearing in almost 40 films between 1938 and 1946. While on tour with the USO, he died in Manila in 1946.
