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    Watch on the Rhine

    Reviewed by
    pietroantoni@

    One great drama from producer/director Herman Shumlin and Warner Brothers, 1943. The adaptation comes from the Lillian Hellman play which played Broadway with the movie's eventual leading man, Paul Lukas. Warners always had a knack for hard hitting, hard boiled dramas and this one came right smack during WW II at the height of the Nazi Regime. It aimed its story line straight at American audiences who had already been at war two years and very dedicated to ridding the world of the Nazi

    menace and Japanese brutality. Apparently, audiences were transfixed by the story this film covered. It became a huge hit.

    This is basically one man's fight against the forces of evil, but a one man fight usually doesn't amount to much. It eventually takes an entire group of people and that would include the entire family dynamic and the extended family as well. The film is full of thrills as all concerned seem cornered by Nazi forces and that includes the three children of the family. The film is very able to mount a real fear of what is happening world wide... that no one can be trusted in this hour of desperation.

    This is not a typical Bette Davis vehicule, not by a long shot! The film belongs to Paul Lukas who won both the New York Critics Prize, the Oscar and many other film awards for this role. It is Mr. Lukas's great shining hour in features which he had been making since the early thirties. I will have to admit that Mr. Lukas seems a bit long in the tooth for the role, much too old as the husband of B. D. and three young children so it's a real coup that he got to repeat his Broadway triumph at Warners.

    In fact, he was 48 years old, but appeared older to me. He's perfection in the role, striking just the right balance to make the character more than believable. There are no momentous high moments or jolts, but rather a steady plodding in doing one's duty, which would never imply any type of slowness or boredom. Quite the contrary.

    Warners was worried that such a political/war thriller might fail at the box office, thus they put the Queen of the Warner lot in the film as the devoted wife. That alone would ensure a great following of Davis fans. With Davis snugly cast in a pivotal role a great supporting cast was needed. And they assembled a dandy one from Geraldine Fitzgerald, again teamed up with Miss Davis, George Colouris, Donald Woods, Beulah Bondi and Lucile Watson in an Oscar nominated performance. The film was Oscar Nominated as Best Feature of 1943 competing with such heavyweights as CASABLANCA, For Whom the Bell Tolls, In Which We Serve, The More The Merrier, Madame Curie, The Ox-Bow Incident, The Human Comedy, The Song of Bernadette and Heaven Can Wait. RHINE became one of the year's most perceptive dramas.

    For Paul Lukas, he was able to reprise the role of a lifetime, a part for which he will always be remembered. Not many actors can find this level of success from a single role. Lukas got lucky both on Broadway and thankfully in the film (imagine if the role had gone to Errol Flynn, who was in the running for this 1943 extraordinary part) For Paul Lukas the dominant role of the gentle German engineer who is a member of the underground fighting Fascism, was a milestone. When Warners bought the rights to the play, they decided to film it almost intact as the play had been, confining the action to one major set and using Miss Hellman to write additional dialogue to the Dashiell Hammett screenplay.

    Lucile Watson, George Colouris, Eric Roberts and Frank Wilson were all reprising their Broadway roles and, as stated, Bette Davis was used for marquee weight, subordinating her own personality for the overall project.

    A Watch on the Rhine rarely happens twice to an actor, and the future Lukas screen roles didn't possess the impact or rate him the attention of his Oscar role. Being Hungarian, he was hard to cast, but his future roles

    nevertheless contained a high standard of work ethic. He worked into old age, even co-starring with Peter O'Toole in Lord Jim. A Must See!

    10
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    pietroantoni@  20.8.2015 age: 36-49 14,551 reviews

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