So sayeth one of the characters, Richard Armstrong Scott (played by Leslie Howard) and never have truer words been said of films in general and of this one in particular. WW2 has long gone but this celluloid gem remains and although filmed for WW2 propaganda this has not limited its continued enjoyment and appreciation. It is a superb commentary on the dangers of any ideology that demands total blind servitude of its followers and perpetrates cruelty and murder to attain it. The film is a stinging commentary on Nazism set against a back drop of the ordinary and human endeavours of people in Canada.
The story opens with a German U-Boat off Canadian waters. The boat and crew require fuel and supplies to enable their return to Germany and so they select a remote part of Canada (Hudson Bay) to surface whilst 6 of the crew go on foot to a village to procure the necessities for the journey home. Disaster strikes when the U-Boat is traced and bombed to pieces by Canadian fighter pilots leaving the 6 men who reached shore stranded on foot and in enemy territory. Their journey to reach the USA, which was still neutral in WW2 at this point, is the main focus of the film and is told in 4 chapters: the pillaging at Hudson Bay; a sojourn at a German Christian community, the Hutterites; on foot going west where they encounter a writer researching the native Amerindians; and finally, a confrontation with a Canadian soldier on board a freight train travelling across Niagara Falls from Canada into the USA. During the course of the journey the 6 crew dwindle as they die or are arrested leaving just one of them trying to reach the US at Niagara.
There are many stars of the era in this film and performances all round are superb even Laurence Olivier's turn as a French Canadian (resembling Gael Garcia Bernal when he sports a beard!) that sometimes raises eyebrows. There is some witty and perceptive dialogue and even though the Nazis sometimes get the better of the Canadians, the Canadians are given the greater voice. Some fine examples of this are:
"You and your Hitlerism are like the microbes of some filthy disease."
"I never would have believed that grown up men could behave like spiteful little schoolboys" (after a Nazi symbolically destroys a Matisse and Picasso).
"One armed superman {the Nazi} against one unarmed decadent democrat."
The chapter in which the Nazis hide out with the Hutterites is particularly poignant as one of the Nazis discovers to his astonishment that in the community people work because they want to support the community, not for financial gain. They work at whatever they enjoy and/or are skilled at. If they leave their community for any reason and return they are not punished but welcomed back. The contrast drawn between them and Nazi Germany is implicit. The importance of the Hutterite chapter is that this film is not anti-German but anti-Nazi.
Watching the film 70 years since it was made one feels patriotism roused as well as hatred and fear of Nazism and what it represents; amazing as a piece of propaganda and marvellous as a film. Finally, this film served Canada and its peoples very well giving it and them a character separate from and distinct to the USA.
The story opens with a German U-Boat off Canadian waters. The boat and crew require fuel and supplies to enable their return to Germany and so they select a remote part of Canada (Hudson Bay) to surface whilst 6 of the crew go on foot to a village to procure the necessities for the journey home. Disaster strikes when the U-Boat is traced and bombed to pieces by Canadian fighter pilots leaving the 6 men who reached shore stranded on foot and in enemy territory. Their journey to reach the USA, which was still neutral in WW2 at this point, is the main focus of the film and is told in 4 chapters: the pillaging at Hudson Bay; a sojourn at a German Christian community, the Hutterites; on foot going west where they encounter a writer researching the native Amerindians; and finally, a confrontation with a Canadian soldier on board a freight train travelling across Niagara Falls from Canada into the USA. During the course of the journey the 6 crew dwindle as they die or are arrested leaving just one of them trying to reach the US at Niagara.
There are many stars of the era in this film and performances all round are superb even Laurence Olivier's turn as a French Canadian (resembling Gael Garcia Bernal when he sports a beard!) that sometimes raises eyebrows. There is some witty and perceptive dialogue and even though the Nazis sometimes get the better of the Canadians, the Canadians are given the greater voice. Some fine examples of this are:
"You and your Hitlerism are like the microbes of some filthy disease."
"I never would have believed that grown up men could behave like spiteful little schoolboys" (after a Nazi symbolically destroys a Matisse and Picasso).
"One armed superman {the Nazi} against one unarmed decadent democrat."
The chapter in which the Nazis hide out with the Hutterites is particularly poignant as one of the Nazis discovers to his astonishment that in the community people work because they want to support the community, not for financial gain. They work at whatever they enjoy and/or are skilled at. If they leave their community for any reason and return they are not punished but welcomed back. The contrast drawn between them and Nazi Germany is implicit. The importance of the Hutterite chapter is that this film is not anti-German but anti-Nazi.
Watching the film 70 years since it was made one feels patriotism roused as well as hatred and fear of Nazism and what it represents; amazing as a piece of propaganda and marvellous as a film. Finally, this film served Canada and its peoples very well giving it and them a character separate from and distinct to the USA.