The Hitler Gang (1944)

Thanks for the memories!

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

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.

Bobby Watson plays Hitler in this film that charts his rise to power from his days at the end of World War One. The film takes us through the famous moments including the Munich beer hall putsch, the writing of Mein Kampf, the burning of the Reichstag along with throwing in many of the famous characters of the time – Goebbels, Hess, Himmler, Goring, etc. It's fast moving and it's educational so worth paying attention. The film also touches on the subject of his niece, "Geli", as played by Poldi Dur . Hitler's niece died in 1931 but her death by suicide has been shrouded in mystery.The film doesn't have an ending as such as it was made in a time when Hitler was still around. so it concludes with some patriotic propaganda as to how he must and will be stopped. The cast are good and look very similar to the real thing. Certain elements of the tale are left out – no Eva Prawn – but the film scores for being different. It provides a glimpse of this man's psychopathic disregard for life and does so without even touching on the concentration camps.

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.

Many years ago, (early 1960s), I caught part of this on late night TV. I remember part of the announcer's intro, because when my dad walked in and asked what was on, I said,'some gangster movie', only recalling the word, gang. Some years later I realized that this was a somewhat accurate, though brief, look at Hitler's rise to power. Two scenes stick in my mind. Near the beginning, there is one where AH is a soldier in WWI with a handlebar mustache. He goes up to a mirror and cuts off the ends, creating the infamous 'toothbrush' look. Later during his ascent, he walks into a beer hall with his followers, pulls a pistol out of his overcoat pocket, and fires a few shots into the air. The 'beer hall putsch' ? Early forties, black and white. The actor REALLY had Hitler down pat.

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.