Directed by Fritz Lang • 1943 • United States
Starring Brian Donlevy, Walter Brennan, Anna Lee
The combination of Bertolt Brecht’s eloquent script (the legendary playwright’s only Hollywood credit), director Fritz Lang’s potent moral themes, and noirish cinematography by the great James Wong Howe come together for one of Hollywood’s most powerful anti-Nazi statements—electrifying propaganda in the form of a gripping thriller. Brian Donlevy stars as Czechoslovak surgeon František Svoboda, who assassinates the notorious Nazi commander Reinhard Heydrich, the so-called “Hangman of Europe.” As Svoboda goes on the run through the underground resistance, the Nazis unleash a new wave of terror.
Up Next in Noir and the Blacklist
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None Shall Escape
Directed by André De Toth • 1944 • United States
Starring Alexander Knox, Marsha Hunt, Henry TraversThe first Hollywood film to confront the atrocities of the Holocaust, this chilling exploration of the psychology of fascism was made during World War II, but actually anticipates the Nuremberg t...
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Brute Force
Directed by Jules Dassin • 1947 • United States
Starring Burt Lancaster, Hume Cronyn, Charles BickfordAs hard-hitting as its title, BRUTE FORCE was the first of Jules Dassin’s forays into the crime genre, a prison melodrama that takes a critical look at American society as well. Burt Lancaster ...
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Crossfire
Directed by Edward Dmytryk • 1947 • United States
Starring Robert Young, Robert Mitchum, Robert RyanThis gritty film noir made history as the first Hollywood film to confront antisemitism. Three of the era’s most celebrated Roberts—Young, Mitchum, and Ryan—star in the hard-hitting tale of a pol...
