Watch on the Rhine: Difference between revisions

| based_on = {{based on|''[[Watch on the Rhine (play)|Watch on the Rhine]]''<br>1941 play|[[Lillian Hellman]]}}

| budget = $1,099,000<ref name="warners">Warner Bros financial information in The William ShaeferSchaefer Ledger. See Appendix 1, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, (1995) 15:sup1, 1-31 p 24 DOI: 10.1080/01439689508604551</ref>

In 1940, German-born engineer Kurt Muller, his American wife Sara, and their children Joshua, Babette, and Bodo cross the [[Mexico–United States border|Mexican border]] into the United States to visit Sara's brother David Farrelly and their mother Fanny in [[Washington, D.C.]] For the past 17 years, the Muller family has lived in Europe, where Kurt responded to the rise of [[Nazism]] by engaging in [[Anti-fascism|anti-Fascistfascist]] activities. Sara tells her family they are seeking peaceful sanctuary on American soil, but their quest is threatened by the presence of house guest Teck de Brancovis, an opportunistic [[Romanians|Romanian]] count who has been conspiring with the [[Embassy of Germany, Washington, D.C.|German Embassy]]. Teck, married to the younger Marthe, tries to force her to learn more about the Mullers. She and David are attracted to each other and she finds her husband's politics horrendous.

* [[Bette Davis]] as Sara Muller-Farrelly

* Eric[[Hal RobertsWeilandgruber]] as Bodo Muller

The Lillian Hellman play had enjoyed a respectable run of 378 performances on Broadway.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=1091| title=Watch on the Rhine| publisher=Internet Broadway Database| access-date=2015-08-09}}</ref> Feeling its focus on patriotism would make it an ideal and prestigious propaganda film at the height of World War II,<ref>{{cite book| title=Hal Wallis, Producer to the Stars| first1=Bernard F.| last1=Dick| page=76| publisher=University of Kentucky Press| date=May 21, 2004| isbn=978-0813123172}}</ref> [[Jack L. Warner]] paid $150,000 for the screen rights in 1941.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|title=AFI{{!}}Catalog|url=https://catalog.afi.com/Film/747-WATCH-ONTHERHINE?sid=8aedbb31-41ac-4cd3-979b-c8bcdd0b6f16&sr=3.3502524&cp=1&pos=7|access-date=2022-02-21|website=catalog.afi.com}}</ref><ref name=TCM>{{cite web| url=httphttps://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title.jsp?stid=/1627&category=Notes/watch-on-the-rhine#notes| title=Watch on the Rhine (1943)| publisher=[[Turner Classic Movies]]| access-date=20152023-0812-0914}}</ref><ref name=Stine>{{cite book| last1=Stine| first1=Whitney| last2=Davis| first2=Bette| title=Mother Goddam: The Story of the Career of Bette Davis| location=New York| publisher=Hawthorn Books| date=May 1, 1974| isbn=978-0801551840| pages=[https://archive.org/details/mothergoddam00whit/page/170 170–172]| url-access=registration| url=https://archive.org/details/mothergoddam00whit/page/170}}</ref><ref name=Higham>{{cite book| last1=Higham| first1=Charles| title=Bette: The Life of Bette Davis| location=New York| publisher=Macmillan Publishing Company| date=October 1, 1981| isbn=978-0025515000| pages=[https://archive.org/details/bettelifeofbette00high/page/164 164–166]| url=https://archive.org/details/bettelifeofbette00high/page/164}}</ref><ref>"Film Rights $ Up and Up; Hollywood Gets Taken But Presitige Pix Pay." Billboard 55:49 (4 December 1943), 4.</ref> The play's producer [[Herman Shumlin]] was hired as director, while many of the actors from the play reprised their role in the film.

''Variety'' called it "a distinguished picture...even better than its powerful original stage version. It expresses the same urgent theme, but with broader sweep and in more affecting terms of personal emotion. The film more than retains the vital theme of the original play. It actually carries the theme further and deeper, and it does so with passionate conviction and enormous skill...Just as he was in the play, Paul Lukas is the outstanding star of the film. Anything his part may have lost in the transfer of key lines to Bette Davis is offset by the projective value of the camera for closeups. His portrayal of the heroic German has the same quiet strength and the slowly gathering force that it had on the stage, but it now seems even better defined and carefully detailed, and it has much more vitality. In the lesser starring part of the wife Davis gives a performance of genuine distinction."<ref>{{cite news| url= https://www.variety.com/review1942/VE1117796216.html?categoryid=31&cs=1&p=0film/reviews/watch-on-the-rhine-1200413959| title=Review: 'Watch on the Rhine'| date=December 31, 1942| work=Variety| access-date=20152023-0812-0914}}</ref>

Davis stated in a 1971 interview with [[Dick Cavett]] that she played the role of the wife for 'name value' because the studio did not consider the film a good financial risk and that her name above the credits would draw audiences. Davis gladly took the secondary role because she felt the story was so important, and that Hellman's writing was "super brilliant".<ref>{{cite web| title=The Dick Cavett Show: Season 6, Episode 40: Bette Davis| url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0875850/| date=November 18, 1971| publisher=[[IMDb|Internet Movie Data BaseDatabase]]}}</ref>