Hitler's SS : Portrait In Evil (1985)

The Worst Film Ever

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Fantastic!

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Jim Goddard directs this made-for-TV war drama about Hitler's regime, concentrating on the relationship of two brothers from Berlin. Helmut(Bill Nighy)is an ambitious, intelligent young man and a self-styled opportunist joining Hitler's SS in 1931. Younger brother Karl(John Shea)is a fine athlete and idealist with opposite political views than his brother; he more or less is forced into service as a chauffeur in the Reich's Storm Troopers. The story line moves from the rise of Nazism to the fall of Hitler's heavy-handed Third Reich. During the course of the brother's war involvement both fall in love with a beautiful chanteuse(Lucy Gutteridge). The brothers will anguish their misdeeds when realizing their parents are killed in an air raid and at that their 13 year old brother has himself ran away to join in the collapsing war effort.Also featured in the cast: Jose Ferrer, David Warner, Carroll Baker, Warren Clarke, John Dicks, Paul Brooke, Michael Elphick, John Normington, Tony Randall and Colin Jeavons as Hitler.

Hitler's SS: Portrait in Evil tells the story of this para-military force. the personal enforcement arm of Adolph Hitler in the Nazi movement and the Hoffman brothers and their connections.Bill Nighy is the cleverer of the two brothers, recognizing the Nazi Party as the coming force in Germany in 1931 and decides to join this elite group. His brother John Shea likes a good time which includes a brawl every now and then. The SA under Ernest Roehm seems like his place in the Nazi movement.Well we all know what happened to Roehm as his ambitions began to exceed even Hitler's. Shea gets himself tossed into Dachau for a little Nazi style rehabilitation. During the Thirties before the war, places like Dachau were not yet the systematic slaughter camps they later became. Shea eventually is released and is drafted into the army.In the meantime Nighy becomes an upwardly mobile guy in the S.S. and a special favorite of Reinhard Heydrich, very chillingly played by David Warner. Through all this Carroll Baker their mother worries about her boys. She's never been crazy about the Nazi movement, she sees what it's doing to Germany and her family. She's most of all concerned with her youngest son who is played by three different juvenile actors who is an enthusiastic member of the Hitler Youth.What becomes of the Hoffman family is a tale tragically told many times over in Germany of that period. In this most British cast film, Tony Randall as a German comedian with trenchant observations of the time and Jose Ferrer as a Jewish professor have two excellent cameo roles.No new ground is broken here, but this is a story that deserves retelling thousands of times over.

When I saw the DVD on sale I had no idea what I was buying, but it was cheap and I hoped it could be interesting. I got much more then my money's worth! It's a story of a German family (father, mother and three sons). In the years of the depression the oldest son joins the Nazi union - simply to get a job. He feels it's the right thing (the Germans having jobs in Germany, even if it meant they'd have to get rid of the foreigners). The other son is strongly against it (but then again he doesn't have to work, he's going to study and be an intellectual).But at the time that Hitler took power and he decided to deal with the brown-shirts the oldest son realizes just what the Nazi regime is all about. As many other common men he is disillusioned and when the war comes, he's sent to the Russian front (where he simply wants to perform his duty).The other son (who's studying now) was very much against the Nazi regime, but one of the tutors shows him that the Nazi way of thinking is the right was, that the goal justifies the means. He becomes an SS officer and s firm believer in the worst parts of the Nazi ideology.The war is nearing the end, the Germany is on its knees. Two brothers meet. Their little brother (still just a child) just became one of the kid soldiers defending the Raich. Only after he blindly goes and attacks a tank the older brother (the SS officer) realizes what the blind hatred of the Nazi ideology is doing to people, and how they have virtually brainwashed him as well.This is just the main part of the story - following the lives of this particular family. There are also many other sub-stories, which really make this film more then just a family drama.All in all it will help you understand how a common man in Germany was overwhelmed by the Nazi propaganda and how the common man had virtually no choice but to do what he did. It will also show you how important it is for any leadership to have a strong opposing critical voice - otherwise the society can easily be doomed (which is not completely unlike what we are witnessing today in many parts of the world).

Must be one of the most underrated British movies for decades.It charts the rise to power of the SS from 1931 up to its downfall in Berlin in 1945.The only historically wrong scene of any consequence was the assassination of Heydrich.It shows him to be attacked in the country on the way in to Prague,when in fact the killing took place in the centre of Prague,more or less.Other than that it is well documented and absorbing to watch.John Shea, Michael Elphick were both excellent in the roles they played.I recommend anyone with a passing interest in the SS or the last war to certainly watch this movie.It was a pleasure to see a war movie that did not depict the Americans winning it and showed the German side all the way through,with only a fleeting glimpse of two allied soldiers.I would say it was 70% political war and 30% wartime relationships.Super stuff.