propaganda with a difference

Rating: Null/10 (12 November 2015)

Weirdly sophisticated because it does something you rarely see in war propaganda - functions by wholeheartedly accepting as true a piece of enemy propaganda. Whatever contemporary critics thought, it's Allied propaganda - a call to unity and solidarity among the diverse elements and interests of the Allied west, specifically in the US. It's also a brutal denunciation of what the film wants us to believe are Nazi ethics, and in contrast, a celebration of what the film wants us to believe are Allied/American ethics. The Nazis are devious, callous, amoral, selfish, and without compassion, even if outwardly friendly. Even where they seem human, they are in fact inhuman monsters, most merciless precisely towards those who are most vulnerable and least useful.
And if that were all, it'd be more or less typical war propaganda. But it's how it achieves it, or things it does in the course of achieving it, that makes it strange and made Allied media dislike it.
To make the point about German heartlessness and deviousness, the u-boat captain is portrayed as outwardly likable and sympathetic and human. He's played by a likable-looking actor, a heavyset guy with a kind-looking face and even a kind voice. And at every step throughout the film, practically, he's set up as sympathetic, or at least likable and friendly. Until he's not and we find out what he's really about. We never quite trust him or his motives (having seen him sneak looks at a hidden compass), but even as we suspect he may be lying to the crew and bringing them to one of his own ships, we like him and don't think he's a monster or a bad guy or a villain, or even necessarily an antagonist. All because of the casting and the way he's portrayed as charming and friendly.
But that's not what elicited most of the complaints.
What elicited most of the complaints is, to make the propaganda point that everyone needed to work together to be as strong as the Nazis and win the war, the Nazi's shown as superhumanly strong and able. Willie, the u-boat captain, is, despite being heavyset and having an unassuming look, the Nazi superman in the flesh. And this may make it even stronger Nazi propaganda - "Look, even a regular-looking schlub, if he's German, has these superpowers." Willie, besides being hypercompetent (which fits, given his profession) as a seaman, is depicted as hypercompetent as a medical man (this is given as his previous profession), and as a tireless rower (that he's later revealed to have been drinking water and energy capsules the whole time does little to diminish our impression of his abilities in that direction). In one scene Bankhead's character even explicitly says, "He's made of iron, we're mere flesh and blood, how can we compete with that?" The film was really laying it on thick.
So that's an odd concession - to allow your enemy's argument that he's superhuman and Godlike and hypercompetent, in order to better make the case to your own people about the necessity of their all working together to fight him. But that's how Hitch and his writers (presumably not including Steinbeck, who disowned the film) chose to go about it. While it may weaken it as pure propaganda, it makes it a much more interesting story and work of art than it would've been otherwise. I think it says a lot about Hitch that he couldn't even do war propaganda straight, but had to make these weird thoughtful additions and changes to the usual format in the service of making a more interesting and entertaining film. That was always his foremost concern, and I see this film as the best compromise he could come up with between the demands of propaganda and the demands of making a good movie. Technically, it does work as propaganda, albeit not ideally, since not so easily - you have to think about it to see how it's Allied propaganda, and that kind of defeats the purpose. But technically he's off the hook, at least. And of course no one during wartime (especially during WORLD wartime) wants to hear someone is amoral as propaganda against them. I think that's why so many saw the German's portrayal as sympathetic, despite his seeming (to me) to be the most evil Nazi ever depicted on screen. In wartime, saying the enemy is a devious killer of the weak who'll sacrifice anyone's life for his own interests just isn't that damning. Better, most think, to show him AS the weak, than as a killer of them. We're not arguing before God or the Pope here, after all. This is war, not a morality contest.
Or so most probably think, or thought at the time.
The film itself, as a film, is quite good. In many ways, despite their different settings, situations, and points, it reminded me most of 12 Angry Men and the Twilight Zone episode "5 Characters in Search of an Exit". Strip the intellectual content and context from it and that's what it most resembles. It's a handful of people stuck together in a tiny space over days; the three stories have the same manner of characters being defined for the audience and for each other, and meeting, and dealing with each other, etc. Same ups and downs. I liked the u-boat captain, and Bankhead's character and performance. Rest of the cast didn't really stand out or make an impression, tho Bendix was memorable (not altogether in a good way) as Gus, who gets the worst of it during the trip.
This was Hitch's only film with Fox and in that and other ways it's unique for him. Most Hitch films, even back to the 30s, you know more or less what you're getting. This one's weird and un-Hitch, while still managing to be good and entertaining and involving, and giving one a lot to think about besides.