None Shall Escape (1944)

Alexander Knox, a great actor all but forgotten by history, gave inarguably his two greatest performances in 1944. In a way it’s a shame — he was nominated for Best Actor as the title character of one of 1944’s heavyweight contenders, Wilson. Had that picture, which earned a robust five Academy Award nominations come out in any other year, or vice-versa, he may have also been nominated for his chilling performance in None Shall Escape. Wilson was released to videocassette in a limited fashion a generation ago, while None Shall Escape was finally released on blu-ray in 2019. The marketing approach of Escape’s poster suggests that Columbia was unsure what to do with it, which isn’t surprising given the film’s concept and lack of a major star. Considering the ensemble cast, Knox could have garnered a Supporting Actor nomination — despite clearly being the film’s star.

None Shall Escape is a difficult film to write about. It’s one of those pictures about which there is simply too much to say; there are too many angles of approach, too many lenses through which to view it. If nothing else, it’s a film that simply must have an engaging production story. Director André De Toth was obviously close to the project — born in Hungary, De Toth came up through the ranks of the central European film industry, and even filmed the German invasion of Poland in 1939 as a news production cameraman. He was a Hollywood emigré when this was filmed, but the results have a certain veneer that belies both De Toth’s youth and the film’s meager budget. Escape received a nomination in the Original Story category for writers Alfred Neumann and Joe Than, though James Steffen over at TCM relates that De Toth brought in future Hollywood Ten member Lester Cole to doctor the script.

The film’s premise is a little complicated. Released while the outcome of the war was still in doubt, and told through a series of flashbacks, it is nevertheless set in the future — and a very prescient one: the Allies have prevailed and form tribunals to hold the Nazis accountable. The narrative revolves around the aptly named Wilhelm Grimm (Knox), a German who teaches school in a small village in Poland. As the film opens, Grimm is being put on trial for his actions during the war; a parade of eyewitnesses are brought to testify against him, including his brother and ex-fiancé; the story is told through their recollections.

When the First World War comes, Grimm enlists in the German army but returns from the fighting grievously injured, having lost his right leg along with the better part of his soul. Embittered, he begins to see the world in a different light, and in time becomes infatuated with Nazism. Shunned by his fiancé, he commits a crime that results in the death of one of his pupils and the loss of his own left eye! A harried Grimm begs the help of the local clergy, including the village rabbi, in order to escape Poland. He heads for Munich, where he moves in with his bookish older brother and officially joins the Nazis. He quickly rises in the party, and what little humanity he had left is given over to Hitler. When his brother chooses to flee Germany for Austria, Wilhelm has him arrested and sent to a concentration camp. To add insult to injury, Wilhelm takes over the education of his nephew, and tries to create a Nazi officer in his own image. In the wake of the Blitzkreig, Grimm returns to his Polish village — this time as an SS commander — with predictable results.

None Shall Escape is mind-boggling in its accuracy. The film is so on the money that it’s actually hard to believe it wasn’t made ten years after the end of the fighting. Although it has many uncomfortable scenes, most of them are the result of things said by Grimm. One however, is quite simply astonishing: as the Nazis round up jews to be taken to forced-labor camps, the town rabbi (a man who previously helped Grimm flee the country) asks to address his congregation, being shoved onto cattle cars. Grimm consents, in hopes of quieting the scene, but is shocked when the rabbi tells his people that they are being taken to their deaths, and encourages them to stand instead, and fight. What comes next is surprising, but not in the way you might expect. It isn’t shocking that Grimm orders his troops to machine gun the jews — it’s shocking how graphic the scenes is — De Toth even shows bullets slamming into the bodies of already slumping children. At the conclusion of the scene, the rabbi staggers to confront Grimm, who at first appears to rush over to embrace the man, but instead casually draws his pistol and shoots him in the chest.

I could write many, many more words about None Shall Escape, but I don’t want to give away anymore about the story than I already have; and I hold no illusions that I could maintain interest if I did so (but I’ll reserve the right to revisit this one on the occasion of another viewing). If nothing else it’s an absolutely superior B film with a stellar performance from Alexander Knox.

None Shall Escape (1944)

Directed by André De Toth

Starring Alexander Knox

Released by Columbia Pictures

Running time: 85 minutes

Availability: Bluray as of 2019. Has aired on TCM, bootlegs.

Grade: A

8.3.4

The Cruel Sea (1953)

The Cruel Sea is one of the best naval combat films ever made. Period. It follows the exploits of the crew of the Compass Rose, a British corvette tasked with convoy escort duty through the German infested waters of the northern Atlantic Ocean. Most of the film’s action takes place during that period of the Battle of the Atlantic referred to as “The Happy Time” by the crews of the German submarines — when they wrought havoc on the relatively undefended sea lanes and hastily thrown together convoys. Despite Britain’s reputation as a maritime superpower, it took more than half the war before they were able gain supremacy in the long struggle with the German navy’s “U”nderwater Boats.

The story launches with the ship’s commission, outfitting, and sea trials; and carries on through her eventual nighttime torpedoing at the hands of a German sub; and closes as her former Captain and First Officer take command of a destroyer in the final months of the war.

The Compass Rose’s beginnings are modest: Her command crew is formed with a single peacetime professional seaman, Lieutenant Commander Ericson (Jack Hawkins). The rest are cobbled together from Britain’s educated youth, those with experience in leisure sailboats thrown into first and second lieutenants’ uniforms. Like all sailors during wartime, however, they adapted quickly or were removed from service. Hawkins is fine as the Rose’s commanding officer — his personality undergoes a subtle but steady shift as the film progresses. He changes from a somewhat unsure leader, blustery at times and easygoing at others, into a dour and obsessed taskmaster, plagued by his conscience and the terror of war. At his right hand is first lieutenant Lockhart (Donald Sinden), an amateur sailor and reluctant officer who offers the crew of the Compass Rose its steadiest hand. He also serves as something of an Ishmael, our guide for the Rose’s many cruises.

The film is riveting without being overly melodramatic. The filmmakers had enough sense to realize the subject matter was dramatic enough to keep viewers invested in the film, so they didn’t feel the need to embellish the story with showy cinematic flourishes. From a filmmaking perspective, what comes through most is the understated nature of the production — including the performances in particular. The cast here is so unglamorous that the viewer’s attention is constantly focused on the circumstances of the Battle of the Atlantic and the cruel sea itself. In fact, there are passages when The Cruel Sea takes on a semi-documentary feel.

Two events in the life of the Compass Rose stand out. The first comes when the crew has their initial crack at a u-boat. Following the sinking of a merchant ship, the Rose’s sonar operator is able to get a fix on the culprit. Yet when Ericson steams in the direction of the submerged vessel, he and the crew find it hiding beneath the swimming survivors of its sunken victim — gambling the British captain is too civilized to depth charge his own countrymen. Knowing that relenting means the u-boat is certain to destroy more vital British shipping and take many more lives, Ericson destroys the sub — at the cost of the lives of the terrified men in the water, and to the shouts of “murderer!” hurled at him in the bridge by his own crew. Later, Ericson is practically undone when the Rose is torpedoed in the black of night, and at the cost of the majority of her crew. Unable to launch boats, the survivors cling to life in a pair of inflatable rafts — struggling to stay both awake and alive in the near arctic night.

Here’s a film that is widely available, yet not well remembered. It offers a gritty and vividly realistic picture of the lives of British sailors during the war years. Although The Cruel Sea is understated in typical British fashion, we discover the effect lends itself as well to a war picture as it does a witty one. A real gem, essential for anyone with an interest in the war.

The Cruel Sea (1953)

Grade: A

Directed by Charles Frend

Starring Jack Hawkins, Donald Sinden, John Stratton, and Denholm Elliot

Released by Ealing Studios

Running time: 125 minutes

Availability: DVD, Netflix

Cry, the Beloved Country (1951)

Truly one of the great films, featuring one of the great, forgotten performances.

I have to acknowledge up front that I've never read Alan Paton's novel upon which this film is based, so I'm not weighed down by the burden of comparison. As pure cinema however, this is an incredible piece of work — subtle, lyrical, and highly affecting. Cry, the Beloved Country is a film about apartheid in South Africa, but its brilliance lies in how the film masks this within a moving and perceptive story of fathers and sons. It could be suggested that this is a film of opposites, and yes, of black and white. Of a white, racist father who finds an altogether unexpected sort of redemption when his anti-apartheid activist son is murdered by native burglars; and of a devout black minister whose life is undone when he discovers that it was his own son who pulled the trigger.

This isn't a crime film or a courtroom film, nor is it a melodrama — although aspects of each of those kinds of pictures are present. Where this lingers is in metaphor, particularly that of the search. On the surface this film is about the search of the fathers for their estranged sons, yet it's through this microcosm that we come to recognize the larger struggle of a nation trying to come to grips with itself, as were are exposed to what life was like for black South Africans on the plantations and in the mines — as well as in the shanty towns.

Our companion is the reverend Stehen Kumalo, played by actor Canada Lee. Known mostly for his role in Hitchcock's Lifeboat, Lee gives an astonishing performance. Rarely ever has an actor poured such emotion into such a reserved and dignified character. If for no other reason try to see this just for his work. He's accompanied by a very young Sidney Poitier, playing a fellow priest, in a role seemingly more indicative of Poitier's later career than his beginnings. Legend has it that director Zoltan Korda was forced to tell South African officials that Lee and Poitier were his indentured servants in order to get them into the country for the on-location filming. Lee's life in the months completing this film was tragic: called before the House Un-American Activities Commission, he was blacklisted in the wake of what the committee deemed unsatisfactory testimony. Broken, he died of a stroke the following year at age 46, with only five feature films to his credit.

The film’s — and Lee’s — great moment oddly brings to mind Terms of Endearment, another film in which child and parent are forced to confront not only great pain, but the coming death of the child. It's only in this notion that the two films have anything in common, but while Shirley MacLaine tears up the set hysterically demanding her daughter's treatment, Lee keeps his back ramrod straight. MacLaine is famously, and appropriately, over the top in her scene. Her outrage comes in the face of the apathy and indifference she sees directed at her daughter's pain. Lee is denied any such entitlement. When his son finally breaks — on his knees and grasping at his father's waist as he cries over and over, "I'm afraid of the hanging!" Lee has no choice but to stiffen, keep his chin up, and maintain his dignity — as he knows his son must also learn to do. Both moments are heartbreaking, but it's easier to empathize with MacLaine. Despite the fact that Aurora Greenway and her daughter are so different, all parents know that the foibles of difference and personality are forgotten when the chips are down. Stephen Kumalo's challenge is greater: he is a man of God and his son is a murderer. Yet he must find a way to show a similar sort of strength at the crucial moment of his life. It's a shattering moment in the film.

See this one, if you love movies you owe it to Lee.

Cry, the Beloved Country (1952)

Grade: A

Directed by Zoltan Korda

Starring Canada Lee and Sidney Poitier

Released by London Films

Running time: 103 minutes

Availability: Has aired on TCM